On-loan City defender available for Town despite AFCON call-up as Edwards gives update on duo's chance of facing Bolton

Luton will have on-loan Manchester City defender Issa Kabore available for their FA Cup third round clash against Bolton Wanderers on Sunday despite the wingback being named in Burkina Faso’s squad for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations that starts this month.

The Stallions began their preparation for the tournament held in the Ivory Coast by facing Iran in a friendly today, beaten 2-1, as they also take on DR Congo in another warm-up clash on Wednesday. However, Kabore didn’t feature for his country in the match this afternoon, as Luton requested his availability for their cup tie against the League One promotion-chasers held over the weekend. With Burkina Faso not starting their AFCON group stage matches until Tuesday, January 16, when they face Mauritania, the 22-year-old was granted permission to remain in Bedfordshire and could now make his FA Cup debut, before heading away.

Asked whether Kabore could feature, Edwards said: “He’s actually available. We’ve had the dispensation from Burkina Faso, so he’s someone that’s available for the game. He’s not going to their training camp, but after that (cup tie) he goes.”

The game is expected to be too early for Dan Potts to make a first appearance of the season, after a number of injuries have kept him out since suffering ligament damage in the friendly against German side Vfl Bochum, but it might be that Reece Burke, sidelined since the 2-2 draw at Nottingham Forest in October, gets his first run-out in over two months at some stage in the tie.

Edwards continued: “Probably too soon for Pottsy. He’s training with us, obviously it’s too soon to come straight into a game. Burkey’s been training a little bit longer than Pottsy, but probably still too soon to come into it from the start anyway. It’s great that we’ve got them back out there training with us, full training as well now.”

Although Edwards is more than likely set to make a host of changes for the contest, he vowed to put out an XI that he believes will give Town every chance of being in the fourth round draw which is to be held on on Monday, January 8.

He added: “As we stand at the moment, we’ve got Locks (Tom Lockyer) and Marv (Marvelous Nakamba) out longer term, other than that, everyone’s back and available. At least everyone’s back in training now, so we’ve got as big a squad as we could expect to have at this stage of the season. I’ll pick the team I think can go and win the game of football, this game now is the most important game for us, so I’ll pick the team with that in mind.

"I have said it before, I think we’ve got 16, 17, 18 outfield players that can start and are actually genuine starters for us all, so it’s really tough to pick in the league, for anyone to select what I think I see as the strongest team. Each game represents different opportunities for people. There’s different strengths and weaknesses for the opposition, so we’ll look at that and I’m pretty comfortable with the group that we've got.”