Luton chief faces a 'conundrum' over key Town duo Adebayo and Lokonga's return to the first team

Hatters boss Rob Edwards admits it’s a real conundrum to know exactly when to bring back hugely influential duo Elijah Adebayo and Sambi Lokonga to boost Luton’s battle to stay in the Premier League this season after they both picked up hamstring injuries recently.

Adebayo had been a huge player for the Hatters since his recall to the team against Arsenal in December, going on to score seven goals in nine top flight games, including a hat-trick as Brighton & Hove Albion were thumped 4-0 at Kenilworth Road in January. However, he then pulled out of the Manchester United fixture before kick-off last month, while Lokonga, who had been hitting his best form since his loan move from Arsenal, playing nine Premier League games in row, went off at half time with Luton 1-0 up at Liverpool in the following fixture, a game they eventually lost 4-1 in his absence.

The pair haven’t played since, Town losing their last two games without them, beaten 6-2 by Manchester City in the FA Cup and then going down 3-2 to Aston Villa in the league last weekend, but hopes were raised they could be back to travel to Crystal Palace tomorrow after Lokonga, who spent time on loan with the Eagles last term, posted an update on social media showing them both on the exercise bikes at the Brache. However, that appears too soon for Edwards, who also isn’t sure whether they will be ready for AFC Bournemouth on Wednesday night either.

He said: “It’s really frustrating as they’re pushing, we’re pushing, but they don’t feel quite right yet. I don’t even want to say we’ll be able to get them for Bournemouth at the moment, because I don’t want to get peoples hopes up and then let people down, so it’s frustrating because they’re close. They’ve been out on the grass, they’ve been trying to push and it’s just not quite right. The issue that we have is that you put them in and you push and then what happens to Amari’i (Bell, hamstring injury) happens to them and we’ve got them out for a long time. All we need to do is get it right as when they’re back, they need to stay back and that’s the conundrum we’ve got at the moment.

Another player who also posted footage of himself back in some kind of light training this week was defender Mads Andersen, who has missed Luton's last 10 games with a calf injury, as he headed back to his native Denmark to continue his rehabilitation. On the chances of him returning to boost Luton’s defensive injury problems for the final six weeks of the season, Edwards added: “He’s progressing really well, that will be a massive plus. He’s due to come back in the back end of next week and hopefully we can start pushing and getting him closer to it as well. Clearly with the defensive injuries that we have got it will be brilliant to have him back.”