Luton boss will consider rotating his players to avoid a repeat of Town's crippling injury problems

​Town chief Rob Edwards admitted he might have to look closely at squad rotation this term to avoid a repeat of last season’s injury crisis.

Luton had well over double figures of players absent at times in a Premier League campaign in which they were relegated, hit hardest from February onwards. With the Hatters still having seven players absent when losing 4-1 to Burnley on Monday night, Marvelous Nakamba, Mads Andersen, Reece Burke, Jacob Brown, Daiki Hashioka, Tim Krul and Jordan Clark all missing out, Edwards opted to select three teenagers in his starting line-up with two more named on the bench as well.

With Luton now having 46 matches with which to contend with in the second tier, and that’s not even counting any cup runs either, asked if he would consider making more changes on a game by game basis to ensure players had a better chance of staying fit for longer, Edwards said: “Last year was an anomaly for us, it was difficult for us to handle and manage. We have had lots of conversations around do we need to rotate a little bit more? Because our style has changed slightly, with how we want to play.

"We do want to be really aggressive and we do have to run hard. Our sprint distance has gone up high, which asks and demands a lot of the boys. Add eight more games to that, league games, as well as the cup ones, it’s difficult. So, maybe a little more planning ahead and squad rotation. Not that I want to be tinkering and changing things too much, but we might have to read ahead and think we have to manage one or two people more than we’ve done in the past.

"We’ll try and utilise it (the squad) in the best way possible. I always want to put the strongest team out that we think is going to win the game, but I do feel, especially when we’ve got the bodies back (from injury) and a couple in, we’re in a position where we can make some changes, whether that’s in game, or from the start, and be strong. That might be something I’ll have to do more this year than I’ve ever done before."

Luton’s lengthy injury list had a massive impact on their chances of staying up last term, as they had to head to the likes of Arsenal and Manchester City with two goalkeepers and five untested teenagers on the bench, giving them little realistic chance of picking up any points. On whether Edwards has had a close look at what can be done to try and stop it from happening again, he added: “I think there were a number of factors, pitches, weather, intensity, different way of playing for us, you know how we evolved during the season.

"Even things like, think about this for a second, it was a really good point the doctor made, the doctor was speaking to a lot of the other Premier League doctors on a meeting. You can make five subs now can’t you, so relate it to our players. If you're a left back playing against us and say Chieo’s (Ogbene) not started the game, it's been intense, intense, intense, lots of sprints and then with 20 minutes to go, Chieo comes on and you've got one of the quickest players in the league and then he’s sprinting again.

"Defenders now, their level has to be so high for 95 plus minutes, that’s another reason why people were breaking down as well as clearly we weren’t the only team that had a lot of injury problems last year. So I do think there were loads of reasons and elements that we’ve looked at internally as well and are trying to improve all the time.

"I’m not just saying it was because of that and that, there’s areas we can try to do better in to manage players as well. The difficulty is when you play a certain way, we play with real intensity, you’ve got to be able to train that way as well. So finding that balance is going to be key for us going forward, because clearly when we’ve got our best team, best squad available, we can be really competitive at any level, I think we showed that last year, especially between December and February, so we know how important that is.”