Luton chief issues a rallying call after Town defender is the latest to be ruled out for the season

Hatters boss Rob Edwards isn’t going to be using an injury crisis like he has never witnessed before as any kind of excuse during Luton’s battle to stay in the Premier League this term, despite losing yet another player for the rest of the season in defender Amari’i Bell.

The Jamaican international went off in the early stages of the 3-2 defeat to Aston Villa earlier this month and underwent surgery today, Edwards now not expecting him to return to feature in Town’s survival bid. Bell is now one five players who are highly unlikely to play again this season, Marvelous Nakamba, Dan Potts, Jacob Brown and Tom Lockyer all not believed to play a part in the final 11 games of the campaign for various reasons.

Although there is a better diagnosis for Sambi Lokonga, Elijah Adebayo, Mads Andersen, Gabe Osho and Joe Johnson, the quintet are also missing tomorrow night’s trip to AFC Bournemouth as on Bell, Edwards said: “Amari’i had his operation today, hamstring, so that’s probably going to be him. It’s just the situation that we’re in though, a lot of them are long term ones, so we’ll see. We’ve got more updates coming, but that’s the situation we’re in.”

Discussing the injury issues at Kenilworth Road, which will rob Luton of 10 players at the Vitality Stadium this evening, Edwards admitted it was something he hadn’t come across during his playing or managing career. However, he won’t let it affect them, saying: “I’ve not experienced it before, but we’ve spoken about it as a staff and as players, we’re not going to let anything faze us, we’re not going to let anything derail us.

"There’s no point in moping about, moaning about it. We’re working hard behind the scenes, the staff are, to try and get people back. We’re not going to be able to get too many back before the end of the season I don’t think, so we’ve got to be able to deal with it. If we moan about it, feel sorry for ourselves, we all know what will happen, so we’ve got to deal with it. There’s going to be opportunities for other people and they’ve got to step up and that happened on the weekend.

"We need everyone to stick together. It’s difficult times but that’s just got to make us all stronger, it’s got to bring us even closer, got to make us work even harder. If anything could, this situation has got to make us do it. There’s no other way as we’re not going to accept any kind of excuses, not going to accept any moaning or ‘what about this, we’ve not got him fit.' It’s just an opportunity for someone else and has got to make us run even harder.”

Edwards also pointed at the example of Liverpool, the Reds forced to raid their academy in recent weeks after also seeing a number of their stars out of action. He highlighted in particular the quite stunning atmosphere created at Anfield when Jurgen Klopp’s side produced a truly awesome second half performance to turn round a 1-0 interval deficit and beat Luton 4-1 to further enhance their title-winning credentials.

It’s a lead that the Town chief wants to follow, adding: “We want the supporters to get behind us. I suppose my job is always to learn and you look at one of the best in Liverpool recently who have gone through similarities in terms of injuries and key players being out. I didn’t hear anyone moaning, I saw one of the best managers in the world giving young players opportunities and I saw them taking those chances.

"I saw them winning games and winning a major honour as well. If we can learn from anything, I saw their supporters as we all did, sticking with them and going absolutely wild in the game against us, so I think it’s an opportunity for us to learn there. A huge club in a difficult time and came through it stronger, so we’re going to try and do the same.”