Luton chief is hoping to welcome back Burke for Bluebirds trip

Luton boss Matt Bloomfield is hoping he will be able to welcome back defender Reece Burke to his squad for tomorrow evening’s absolutely vital Championship trip to Cardiff City.

The 28-year-old has been out since the 3-0 loss to Leeds United in late November, but has returned to training recently. While the Hatters were suffering their 21st defeat of the season at Burnley on Saturday, Burke himself was back at the Brache, being put through his paces by Town’s medical staff in a bid to boost his chances of featuring during the run-in.

Luton will make the trip to Wales without influential centre half Kal Naismith, the on-loan Bristol City defender picking up a one game ban due to his red card inside 20 minutes at Turf Moor, and asked about the chances of Burke being included in the match-day 20, speaking during his pre-match press conference, Bloomfield said: “We’ll potentially have Burkey back in the squad. We haven’t trained yet today, we’re training this afternoon. We’ve given the lads some extra recovery time this morning before we travel, but we’ll have to see how he is.

“He’s been injured and he’s been ill, he missed a week so we’re just building up his fitness. He did a big session Saturday morning, so we’ll see how he is when he gets in the building today, see how he’s reacted to that and see whether we can include him for the trip tomorrow. I’ve got the numbers and the distances, but I wasn’t here to put eyes on him so we need to see him, see how he’s feeling in himself as on top of the injury he had a week or so where he was ill, lost of a bit of weight and that’s just knocked him back this last little bi.

"We’ve been speaking about him for a few weeks, I’ve been telling you he’s nearly there and I thought he was but he was ill for a week around the Watford game, so we just need to get eyes on him today. If we can include him tomorrow night then great, if he needs a bit longer then we’ve got to be careful with him as he’s missed a lot of football, so we’ve just got to make sure that he’s right.”

If Burke, who has made just 10 appearances for Luton during yet another injury-hit campaign, is available then it’s most likely he would be named as a substitute to begin with, Bloomfield adding: “Bench would be best case scenario for us at this point. He’s not played any U21s football, reserve football, he’s been out for a long time.

"We can’t let our situation and circumstances dictate that we rush someone back in if they’re not quite ready. As soon as he’s ready to play it will be great to have Burkey back. He’s obviously a big player for the football club but I can only play players who are ready. If he’s ready then great, if he’s not then he won’t be ready.”