Luton teenager charged with showing he can replace Naismith during busy festive period

Luton youngster Joe Johnson has been tasked with showing he can step up and replace club captain Kal Naismith over the busy festive schedule after getting the nod at left back for Boxing Day’s 4-0 success over Wycombe Wanderers.

The 19-year-old, who came through the ranks in Bedfordshire, having once been in the youth system at Arsenal, has had a stopstart career at Kenilworth Road since making his first team debut in April 2023, when, not long after turning 17, he came off the bench during the 2-1 Championship success over Middlesbrough.

Johnson had another outing that season when featuring against Hull City, before unsurprisingly didn’t get a great deal of game time with Town promoted to the Premier League, although did make his top flight bow in the 5-1 loss at Manchester City, also coming on in the 4-2 home reverse to Fulham, with three other cup outings during the campaign. Last term he made his full league debut in the opening day 4-1 defeat at home to Burnley, as he went on to play eight times in total, with four more starts.

The England youth international, who has represented his country at the U17 World Cup and U19 European Championships, then suffered a bad hamstring injury in the summer which required surgery, as after recovering from his spell on the sidelines, was fit enough to start both cup ties against Exeter in the Vertu Trophy and Fleetwood in the FA Cup recently, before getting the nod to face the Chairboys on Saturday with Naismith having picked up an injury in the 3-2 loss to Reading on Thursday night.

Playing as an out and out left back, Johnson who has now featured 18 times in all competitions, didn’t let anyone down either, with an almost 90 percent completion rate of his passes, making five defensive contributions in total. Speaking about the teenager, Wilshere is hoping that with Town facing a run of six games in 21 days, he can go again once more when Leyton Orient head to Bedfordshire on Monday evening, and be an option for the matches against Exeter, Doncaster Rovers, Stevenage, Swindon and Lincoln too.

Speaking after the Wycombe victory, the Town chief said: “Credit to JJ, credit to JJ. I said that after the game to the players, because JJ is first of all a young player who’s been out for a long time, played a couple of 21s games, played in the EFL game, played in the FA Cup game. He actually came to see me and we had some really good conversations and I said to him, at times I just think the team needs Kal’s leadership, so that was tough for him.

"But it shows you if you train right, if you live right, if you bring energy to the group, as we spoke about it and the players were cheering for him, so I think that shows how loved he is in the group and that helps. I’m happy for him, his challenge now is to go again because young players who come through academies, I speak from my experience, that is the biggest challenge. Finding players to go Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday and build that robustness, that’s his challenge now, to perform at that level again.”

Meanwhile, asked for an update on Naismith, who had started all of the manager’s first 10 league games in charge, but was absent on Boxing Day having been substituted on the stroke of half time at the Select Car Leasing Stadium while holding his calf a few days earlier, a problem that affected his time at Bristol City prior to joining Luton, Wilshere added: “It’s not as bad as we first thought, but I don’t know exactly how long he’ll be. I think the problem for Kal is he’s had a history of injuries in that area, so we’ll probably have to be a little bit more careful.”