Luton defender Lockyer out of Stoke trip but Jones has good news over Pearson and Bree

Luton defender Tom Lockyer has been ruled out of the weekend’s trip to Stoke City following the ankle injury picked up against Cardiff City on Tuesday night.

The news is a big blow for boss Nathan Jones with the Wales international starting Town’s last 15 league games, forming a fine partnership with skipper Sonny Bradley, before he was forced off with half an hour gone of Tuesday night's 2-0 defeat to Cardiff City.

There was a better diagnosis for Matty Pearson though who didn't reappear after the interval in midweek with a tight hamstring, as discussing the pair, Jones said: “Lockyer’s struggling a little bit with his ankle, he went over on it and it came up a little bit so he's struggling.

“Matty Pearson is less, he had a tight hamstring.

"We didn't want to risk him or anything, so we took him off, which was not ideal to lose two centre halves, especially against a team like Cardiff, so one with a bit of good news, the other is probably going to be out a little bit longer than the other.

“Lockyer could be (out for a couple of weeks), we're not going to know until the swelling goes down a little bit, but he won’t be eligible for Saturday so that's one thing.”

Jones did have some promising news regarding James Bree though, the full back having not started since the 3-1 FA Cup defeat to Chelsea, as he continued: “He’s good, we’ve got a couple back so we’ll have options in that area, it’s just what we choose to do.”

The Town chief also confirmed that neither Gabriel Osho or Peter Kioso could be recalled from their loan spells at Rochdale and Northampton Town respectively, but is more than confident there is enough at his disposal to cover any absentees.

He added: “They’re out now, you can’t recall those out of the window, but we’ve not got a dearth of defenders, we’re not, we’re fine.

“We’ve had two, but luckily enough we have seven or eight defenders, or people who can play in defensive positions.

“We’re not struggling, it’s just unfortunate that those two, if they went down after the game we’d have no problem, the trouble was they went down mid-game against a side and then we had to shuffle things.

“That unsettled us because at no point did I think we were going to lose that game, right up until Harry Wilson picked the ball up and put it in the bottom corner.

“Their manager was honest enough to come out and say we were in the ascendancy and he felt the game was slipping away from them at half time.

“When I was watching the game back, we were the ones on the front foot for the first seven or eight minutes and then out of absolutely nothing they score and that’s the Championship.

“Sides who have got real quality can do that to you, and that’s what happened, so that was the unfortunate thing, but no problem squad wise to cope with that.

“We've got people coming back so that's the good thing.

“It’s never timely, never good to have as we try to operate on a tight squad really, but we’ve got people that can cover in that area, not a problem, so we’ll go from there.”