New Hatters chief will assess Luton squad quickly to work out where Town need to strengthen
Bloomfield eager to have his say in the club’s recruitment policy
New Town boss Matt Bloomfield has highlighted the importance of assessing Luton’s squad as swiftly as possible before deciding what positions he feels require strengthening during the January transfer window.
Having seen Isaiah Jones come in from Middlesbrough and Joe Taylor leave for Huddersfield Town just before he was appointed, the Hatters manager currently has a full squad of 25, so unless he opts to bring in players under the age of 21, will need to trim the playing personnel in order to do so. One space could be freed up if he doesn’t renew the month-long contract of experienced defender Erik Pieters, who had been brought in on a short-term deal under previous boss Rob Edwards.
He could look to offload a goalkeeper as well, Luton having both Tim Krul and James Shea as back-up to Thomas Kaminski, with youngster Jameson Horlick back at Kenilworth Road once more following an impressive loan spell with Dulwich Hamlet. A decision might also be made over whether to include England U21 centre half Teden Mengi for the second half of the campaign or not, following his serious knee injury that will keep him out for the next few months at least.
Bloomfield won’t be alone in deciding just which players are brought in now as Town will also lean on the data-led system they have, although the new boss confirmed he will be part of the recruitment team, as on the need to make a brisk decision on who he wants to keep, he said: “I think it’s really important. The thing I’ve been really encouraged by is the team element of the recruitment.
"We know Mick (Harford) and Chappie (Phil Chapple) and the two boys who do the recruitment as well, Yousuf (Sajjad) and Jay (Socik), so there’s plans in place already. They’ve been working extremely hard, but I love that I’m part of that process, I love that we’re working on that together. We’ll come to a decision as a group and we’ll move forward with it.
"That team ethic is really exciting but we’ve got a short period of time. We’ll have to assess very, very quickly, see if there’s anything available to us. But first and foremost, the group that we have has to take my absolute focus because we’ve got some extremely good footballers here and we’re really fortunate to have them.”
Having played for almost two decades at Wycombe Wanderers, the majority of those games coming in League One and League Two, then Bloomfield will have come up against a number of Town’s squad when lacing up his boots as a midfielder for the Chairboys. Having now had his first few training sessions with them, on whether he knew any of them before taking the job, he added: “None I knew personally, but several I interacted with maybe playing against or known through a mutual contact. There were plenty I’ve come up against and it was nice to be on the same team as them and get to know them a bit better.”