Luton boss reveals he kept Chigozie's debut a secret from Town teenager
Centre half gets his first start against Coventry
Luton boss Matt Bloomfield revealed he didn’t tell young defender Christian Chigozie that he was making his senior debut for the Hatters in their Carabao Cup first round tie at Coventry City until just over two hours before kick-off yesterday.
The 18-year-old is incredibly highly thought of by the powers that be at Kenilworth Road, as he was named on the bench twice when Town were a Premier League side, at Arsenal and Manchester City, that while studying for his GCSEs at Chiltern Academy, also among the substitutes three times last term in the Championship, for the matches with Burnley, Portsmouth and Derby County.
Chigozie, who was born in Spain, but moved to England at the age of six, joining Luton Town Community Trust’s Pre-Academy programme as an under-seven, before signing for the main academy two years later, penned his first professional contract back in February, also playing for Town’s U21s in the Premier League Cup group stages.
The defender has been training with the first team regularly at the Brache as well, heading out to Slovenia for the club’s warm weather training camp this summer, as he also featured in a number of pre-season games too. Chigozie was then one of 11 changes made by Bloomfield for the match at the CBS Arena to take on Frank Lampard’s Sky Blues side, with Christ Makosso suspended after picking up a three match ban for violent conduct against Peterborough at the weekend.
He didn’t have it easy either, up against Haji Wright, who has scored 70 league goals in just over 200 outings, but the centre half looked increasingly assured as the match progressed, winning three aerial challenges as he also made three tackles and completed two clearances as well, finishing with a passing success rate of just over 80 percent too.
Speaking about his efforts, Bloomfield said: “To come in and perform the way he did, obviously we lost Christ this morning, so I’m really, really proud of him and really pleased he was able to put in that performance. He spent some time with us in pre-season and he’s never let us down, always played really well, always impressed. I love his character and his attitude. He’s a boy who keeps his feet firmly on the floor, he’s really calm, there’s nothing about getting carried away with the situation. He just comes in and gets on with his work and I really admire him, I like him a lot.
"Once we heard the news about Christ, we were really keen to pick him, so we didn’t tell him up until the team meeting at half past five. I didn’t want him to get nervous and think about it too much, so we kept it from him. We told him at half past five and I’m really, really pleased for him, really proud of him. It’s a really big moment for our football club to have Chigsy coming through as I think he’s one that we can be really excited about.”
On how the teenager reacted to the news that he was playing, Bloomfield continued: “As he always does, just calm. He’s not too high and never too low as a boy. He’s always very, very calm. I didn’t want him thinking about it too much and overthinking it, so we waited as late as we possibly could to tell him the news. He just took it in the team meeting and he was ready to go.”
With Luton swapping their entire back three, Chigozie began on the right, with Mark McGuinness in the centre and Tom Holmes on the left, the pair each with over 150 senior appearances under their belt, completing the entire 90 minutes. Irish international McGuinness himself made his debut as an 18-year-old too, then when on loan at Ipswich Town from Arsenal in a 1-0 victory over Gillingham five years ago, and discussing his youthful team-mate, he added: “He’s slotted in really nicely.
"He’s a young guy and centre half is not the easiest position to just be thrown into against a tough opposition with some good players, but I think he did really well. He should be proud of himself and his family should be proud. My debut was a while back, I remember that very vividly. I was playing alongside some good centre halves, they were talking me through the game. I didn’t have to do too much with Chris, he did all the work and played well.”