Luton boss: Keyboard warriors can pipe down when Hylton comes good

Hatters manager Nathan Jones has demanded supporters give striker Danny Hylton the respect he feels his forward deserves after some have questioned whether the forward is good enough for the Championship.

The 31-year-old has led the line in Town’s last two games against Stoke City and Millwall, following the enforced absence of leading scorer James Collins to a positive coronavirus test.

Hylton, whose last goal for Luton came over 18 months ago, on March 23, 2019 in a 4-0 win over Doncaster Rovers, didn’t look like netting during either game, although that was largely down to a lack of supply-line in both encounters, particularly on Tuesday night at the New Den.

After missing the back end of the 2018-19 campaign, plus the first half of last season with a persistent knee injury, Hylton was only used twice when fit by previous boss Graeme Jones, although immediately came back into the reckoning once Nathan Jones took over, featuring in all nine of the remaining matches, with two starts.

Awarded a new two year deal in the summer, he has made seven appearances this season already, and when asked about the murmurings from some fans over his ability to be a force in the second tier, Jones said of the striker who has 58 goals in 136 outings: "I don’t know what people are saying about Danny, I don’t read social media, but people need to remember what Danny Hylton has done for this club first and foremost, so he’s bought himself a little bit of respect, a hell of a lot of respect.

"Because trust me, when I came into this football club, there wasn’t the calibre of player of Danny Hylton in this football club, he was a catalyst for us to do superbly well.

"People have short, short memories, I understand that as it’s all the here and now, society now is I want, I want, I want, but Danny Hylton has done wonderfully for this football club.

"Right now, he hasn’t played for a long time, got injured, did not play, wasn’t put in, so now he’s playing catch-up.

"When he gets rhythm, Danny Hylton is a Championship striker, trust me on that one.

"We haven’t made many wrong decisions here, so when people are giving him a bit, that's fine, strikers need that.

"But Danny Hylton has done enough for this club to earn the respect of people.

"So give him a bit of slack because he will come good and when he does, the keyboard warriors, can then pipe down."