Jones gives Town striker Adebayo his full backing even if Hatters' top scorer is going through a slight dip in form

Hatters boss Nathan Jones has backed striker Elijah Adebayo to the hilt even if the forward has seen his form dip slightly in recent weeks.

The forward has a terrific 16 goals in all competitions this season, while his tally of 15 in the second tier is the best for Luton since Phil Gray managed 19 at this level back in the 1992-93 campaign.

Since scoring a wonderful team goal against Millwall earlier this month, Adebayo has now gone four matches without a goal though, missing a penalty in the 2-0 defeat at Huddersfield recently too.

Jones declared on the night that he was well below his best, while he also couldn’t quite hit the heights he has done this term in the 1-0 win at Cardiff on Easter Monday, on what was his 37th start from 39 appearances this season.

With Cameron Jerome injured and Danny Hylton required to play in midfield recently, then Jones has been unable to rotate his strikers as he may have wanted, particularly with the kind of threat Adebayo poses to visiting defences, and with every point vital in Luton’s bid of the play-offs.

With that in mind, if Adebayo is going through a quiet period, that wasn’t a major concern to Jones, who said: “He’s 23 years of age, his first full season in the Championship, the boy’s doing wonders.

"For us, he’s wonderful, he works hard, if not harder than any other centre forward in the league.

“His competition would come from people like Dominic Solanke (Bournemouth) and the rest of the centre forwards at this football club.

“He’s a phenomenal worker, and I’d include Jed Wallace (Millwall) in that as well, so he’s going to have a dip, but the thing that other people can’t see, they give me everything.

“Whatever managers say, I’ve worked with talented groups and expensive groups (when people say) we should’ve won that, should’ve done this.

"But this group just give each other everything, it’s phenomenal.”