Quad injury forces Hatters skipper to miss Hammers defeat

Luton boss Rob Edwards revealed that a quad injury forced club captain Tom Lockyer to miss Friday night’s 2-1 defeat to West Ham United.

The Hatters skipper had gone off at half time during Tuesday evening’s Carabao Cup 3-2 victory over Gillingham, as discussing his chances of playing against the Irons in his pre-match press conference, Town’s manager had been optimistic.

However, he wasn’t in the squad that faced the Hammers, as Edwards said afterwards: “It was a bit too soon for him.

"I couldn't talk about it yesterday, but a little tweak in his quad, so hopefully he won't be out for too long."

With Mads Andersen taking over in the centre of Town’s back three, it saw Reece Burke on the right and Amari’i Bell left, as they dealt with the visiting attackers, which included Michail Antonio, for large periods, restricting them to three shots on target.

Unfortunately, two of them, from Jarrod Bowen and Kurt Zouma found the net, as Andersen’s late header was a mere consolation, but Edwards added: “It was a good start, people probably expect us to start fast here and we wanted to.

"We've got to try and be able to keep that balance of being aggressive and trying to press high, playing forward, running forward, but also at the same time, get compact so no-one can play through us and I thought we did that pretty well tonight.

"We tried to play in their half as much as possible, so again there were lots of things there I can be pleased with and build on, but I really want to reward these amazing supporters with some points.”