Luton chief hails the bravery shown by Town's 'leader' to put his body on the line against Boro
Striker plays through the pain barrier in goalless draw
Luton boss Matt Bloomfield didn’t think many other players would have put their bodies on the line in the same way that striker Carlton Morris did to make sure he could feature for the Hatters in Saturday’s goalless draw with Middlesbrough.
The 29-year-old had been a huge doubt in the build-up to the contest, having come off in the closing stages of the 2-1 success at Cardiff City in midweek with what Bloomfield revealed was a groin problem during his pre-match press conference. However, when the line-ups were announced at 2pm, Morris was named alongside Elijah Adebayo upfront as the Hatters kept an unchanged side from the team who had given their chances of safety a huge boost by triumphing in Wales.
The forward was part of a Town side who completely dominated the opening 45 minutes too but couldn’t take any of the golden chances they created, although Luton’s leading scorer this term wasn’t to blame for that aspect, putting both of his efforts on target, where others couldn’t, the second one tipped over the bar by visiting keeper Mark Travers.
Morris kept going throughout a second half that became more even too, finishing with 12 aerial battles won, as although he stretched his own barren run in front of goal to 13 games, a sequence that is closing in on three months, was one of Luton’s top performers on the day. Discussing his efforts afterwards, Bloomfield said: “Fantastic, I don’t think there’s many footballers that would have put themselves out there like Carlton did considering the injury that he’s got.
"I’m sure he’ll need a couple of days to let that settle down as he was unable to train Thursday and Friday. He was doing a bit of running and I think it was touch and go, well, it was only touch and go on our side as in his mind he was playing. He got up and came in this morning determined to play, so a real leader’s performance, real leadership in terms of his character and we need that right now.”
With Middlesbrough missing a large number of defenders to injury, Rav van den Berg and Dael Fry both absent, along with Luke Ayling, lining up with Jonny Howson and Neto Borges standing in as emergency centre halves, there was the hope that Town would be able to have some joy up against the weakened back-line. They did just that, particularly in the first period, Thelo Aasgaard missing two gilt-edged chances, Adebayo fluffing a wonderful opportunity when seizing on a poor backpass, also just unable to reach Morris’s cross from a few yards out.
Playing the pair together in an effort to try and take advantage of the visitors’ injury issues was something that Bloomfield admitted they had definitely targeted in the build-up, adding: “If you look at some of the big players they had missing at the back, it was an opportunity for us to try and assert our physicality at the top of the pitch and with the profile of forwards that we have, so yes it as something we understood.
"We’re missing some big players, still are right now, so throughout the season it seems to be very prevalent at the moment, the amount of players that are getting injured. Boro are obviously missing some real big players defensively and we felt it was an opportunity for us at home to create some chances and we did.”