Jones not interested in City absentee excuses after Hatters knock Norwich out

Town boss Nathan Jones wasn’t interested in any sob stories from Norwich City after their 3-1 defeat to Luton on Saturday.

The Canaries went into the game without up to 20 players available due to international duty, injury and suspension, including top scorer Teemu Pukki, England U21 quartet Ben Godfrey, Todd Cantwell, Oliver Skipp and Max Aarons, plus experienced keeper Tim Krul.

Opposition boss Daniel Farke stated afterwards his side had needed their absentees available to progress in the competition, but Jones pointed to the players that were on display for the visitors and the Hatters' impressive display.

He said: “They’ve just spent millions on (Jordan) Hugill, they've got internationals, (Mario) Vrancic, (Onel) Hernandez, (Christoph) Zimmermann, (Alex) Tettey, all top players, they were Premier League last season.

“Let's not take too much away, they've had 15 go, but I'm not sure 15 can play unless the rules have changed.

“I thought we were excellent from start to finish, they've had a few players missing but they still had a fantastically strong side.

"We were excellent, structurally in terms of our shape and how we pressed, we could have moved it a bit better first half, but I thought we looked the more dangerous side and I'm really pleased.

“All we can do is face opposition in front of us.

"Norwich were very confident that they had a strong enough squad to play the game.

"A lot of sides changed things, but we used it in the right way I feel as one, we wanted to win the game, but two, we wanted to finish off pre-season.

"We would have looked for a marquee game, a Premier League side here at the end of pre-season, but with the Carabao Cup, it was a strong as test as we could possibly have had.

"These are great tests for us and we feel we are ready now.

"We’ve got a long week of preparation, but we feel like we are ready to go into the season.”

Striker James Collins who bagged himself a 16-minute hat-trick in the second half to secure victory, added: “They were in the Premier League last season, they’ve got a great squad.

"It proves how good the squad is if he’s got 15 internationals away and they still had some quality on the pitch.

“They had some great players in that team, even though they were missing 15 players, you could still see what quality they’ve got, so I thought it was a really good test for us.

"But that’s why you want to be in the Championship, you want to play against teams like that."