Mengi in the frame for Luton as Bloomfield ponders defensive changes at Lincoln

Defender Teden Mengi is in the frame to make his first start of the season when Town head to Lincoln City this weekend.

The 23-year-old has only made three competitive starts for the Hatters since manager Matt Bloomfield was appointed in January due to a knee injury that required an operation, as he was back for a run-in to the Championship campaign that saw Luton ultimately relegated back to League One following a last day 5-3 defeat at West Bromwich Albion.

Although there were rumours of a move away from Kenilworth Road over the summer, the England U21 international returned to the Brache for pre-season training, before facing time on the treatment table once more when he was the victim of a poor challenge in the 2-0 victory at Southend United.

With further speculation regarding Mengi’s exit on transfer deadline day recently, top flight side Burnley rumoured to be interested, a switch to Turf Moor didn’t materialise either, meaning the ex-Manchester United youngster was named in Town’s 19-man EFL squad, and could now be part of the side who take the pitch at the LNER Stadium on Saturday, as Bloomfield said: “Ted played 45 minutes yesterday in an U21s game which was great for Ted.

"He’s getting closer, he’s been training for a couple of weeks now, so he’s a big footballer, he’s a big player for us. Unfortunately for us he’s been robbed of lots of games through injury in the period of time that I've been here, but he’s trained very well in pre-season. He’s missed a little while but he’s back training with the group and played 45 minutes yesterday.”

Having witnessed his side concede three calamitous goals during their 3-2 defeat to the Pilgrims on Saturday, a game in which Town had over 40 minutes against 10 men, but still couldn’t get a result, then asked whether he might look to alter a defence that was one game away from setting a new club record for least goals conceded in the beginning of a Football League season, and whether that might see Mengi included, Bloomfield continued: “Possibly, I think the group and the team has to reflect performances and if you perform well you deserve to stay in the team and if there are performances that aren’t at the required level or what we expect then ultimately you should consider changes.

"I don’t want to make too many changes all the time because you want some consistency and continuity within the group. I think we’ve had that recently, more so than earlier in the season where we were having to pick teams and bodies for minutes rather than choices, so absolutely, you consider everything. We’ve watched it with clear eyes, I watched the game back Sunday morning, looked at the data, looked at the stats, looked at the opportunities we created, looked at the opportunities that we could have created, could have been shots that we left out there in my opinion.

"We’ve looked at the goals that we gave away and made sure we worked on that this week and we have done. Ted’s someone we think a lot of, but forgive me for not giving you the team selection, I don't think that’s the right answer for me to give. He’s someone we think a lot of, he had 45 minutes yesterday, he’s trained for the last couple of weeks, he’s back amongst the group.”

The one slight concern for Bloomfield would be that having just got back from an injury, Mengi breaks down once more against the Imps, so that will be factored into his thought process as well, the Luton chief adding: “With any situation, in the nearly three years that I’ve been doing this job I try not to make decisions on emotion, I try to make decisions based on evidence, on facts.

"That’s how I’ve done it and that’s how I’ll continue to do it. So if players are ready, they’re ready, if they’re not, they’re not. If they can have a certain amount of minutes as they’re at injury risk after that it’s unfortunately a part of the job that’s hard to make public, but you have to make decisions based on the best interest of the players and that’s part of the job.”