Japanese international is likely to miss Luton's home clash with Rams

Luton are expecting to be without Japanese international Daiki Hashioka for tomorrow evening’s home clash against Derby County at Kenilworth Road.

The 25-year-old had started nine out of the last 11 games for Town, coming on in the other two he has been on the bench for, although often played out of position due to the Hatters’ worsening defensive injury crisis, filling in as centre half on more than one occasion. However, he came off with 13 minutes to go as Luton were beaten 2-0 at Blackburn Rovers last weekend, their seventh successive defeat on the road and now looks unlikely to feature on Friday night.

Boss Rob Edwards said: “There's been some setbacks still that seem to be going on and on, on repeat. Hashi, it's not a significant one but he came off last week and it just looks like a very slight strain. He's been out on the grass already but tomorrow might be too soon for him, so that's the only one from the actual game from last week. Walshy's (Liam Walsh) suspended, that's where we're at going into tomorrow.”

Hashioka joins the long list of defenders who are missing from the contest, as Reuell Walters, Reece Burke, Teden Mengi, Alfie Doughty and Amari’i Bell are all absent. However, Danish centre half Mads Andersen is fit enough to start if Edwards wants to remain with his preferred three at the back system, despite the 26-year-old having only played 13 times in total since arriving at Kenilworth Road from Barnsley back in the summer of 2023 and just 23 minutes this term.

On the ex-Barnsley centre half, Edwards added: “Mads has been training for a while now. He had a little bit of game time recently at home and it will always take game time to be able to get fully up to speed but he’s ready and able to play and to do that from the start as well. So Mads is ready and then it will be down to him to make sure he’s the real Mads Andersen as well, as from a training point of view he’s had a good number of weeks, so he’s ready and available.

“We’ve done both (back four and back three) over the last couple of years, so we’ll go with what we feel is best. But I’ll stress it again, Mads has been training now for I think four weeks fully and building him up to the point now where he’s training every session fully as well, and not maybe missing a day, being inside or something like that. So he’s been training, he’s available as well, so we’re okay.”