Hatters chief hopes new signing Ince has a 'point to prove' after moving to Luton from Potters

Luton boss Nathan Jones hopes that deadline day loan signing Tom Ince comes to Kenilworth Road with a point to prove after joining from Championship rivals Stoke City.

The 29-year-old has fallen out of favour at the Bet 365 Stadium since the season was postponed due to Covid-19 last year, only starting four games in total since football resumed, not even making the match-day squad in recent weeks.

After linking up with Jones once more, having played under the Town chief during his stint in charge of the Potters, Ince, who cost Stoke £10m when signing from Huddersfield in July 2018, has already stated how much he is looking forward to not spending his weekends watching Gillette Soccer Saturday anymore.

On whether he can use that frustration to Luton’s benefit, Jones said: “Hopefully, but his attitude has been first class, his attitude always was, every day I worked with him, his attitude was first class.

“Sometimes I think he’s a little bit misunderstood because of what he is, he has strengths, he has deficiencies, it’s up to us to try and improve his deficiencies, but get him playing to the best of his ability, as he has some wonderful pedigree.

“You look at his career, people have played a lot of money for him, he’s always been in the Premier League or Championship, so he's got some wonderful pedigree.

“If he comes here with a point to prove, then he’ll be a better player for Luton Town.

“We’ve done well to get him, but I spoke to him, spoke to the people at Stoke, they were very good and I spoke to his people and Tom himself.

"He believes this is the right place he can spark or reignite a little bit of fire in him, so let's hope that happens."

On just how Ince, who started his career with Liverpool and has also played in the top flight for Crystal Palace and Hull City, while representing England at U17, U19 and U21 level, can bring to the Hatters, Jones continued: “I know him, know his character, know what he can produce, so hopefully we can get him producing and firing and playing his best football.

“He has real quality, in the final third he has quality, he can produce, he can go past people, he’s got good ball retention, so he’ll give us something different.

“He’s quite versatile, his favourite position is wide on the right, but he can do wide left, he can play behind the front man, he can play as a second striker, so he gives us versatility.

"We've now got a decent squad, we’ve got strength in every position to hopefully finish strongly this year.”

With Jones having managed Ince at Stoke during his spell there, the son of former West Ham, Liverpool and Manchester United midfielder admitted he was thrilled to link up with his former boss once more.

The Welshman was pleased to hear his prior work had helped enable the move to go through, saying: “That’s good. I had a good relationship with him and a lot of the players there.

“I didn’t get the results needed but, in terms of the work, the structure and how I treated them as players, I don’t think many could have a problem with that, so I’ve got a good relationship with him.

“It didn’t quite work out but that’s fine and hopefully he can come in here now and reacquaint ourselves.

“We’ve got a good relationship and, hopefully, he can enjoy playing in our side.

“We’re delighted to have him and he’s fitted in really well.

"He’s a real good kid, to be fair, we’re looking forward to having him here and hopefully he’ll do well for us.”

With Luton struggling for goals recently, scoring just once in their last four league games and away from home in particular being an issue, netting twice in eight encounters, it’s hoped Ince’s arrival will see Town's creativity given a major boost.

Jones added: “He’ll add to that, but we’ve done a load of work as we’re in a decent place performance wise.

"It’s just we’ve got into the final third on a lot of occasions, we did it today, we probably had 60 clips where we could have done better in five games, which is phenomenal.

"But to get into the final third 60 times and probably more than that as we only did the most relevant ones, it’s about us producing when we get into those areas and about us having a little bit more care, a little bit more quality, make our runs better and a bit more desire in the box.

"If we can do that with a little bit more quality then brilliant and Tom brings quality to the table.”