Still hopeful that injuries are starting to clear

The Luton chief saw his squad down to the bare bones on Saturday for the 1-0 win over Cheltenham Town, but confirmed in this afternoon’s press conference, a number of players were back in training.

He said: “We’ve got people training without training full out. That’s one of the problems, I can’t look at anything and go, what a terrible injury, they’re just taking their time to clear up.

“(Paul) Connolly, (Alex) Lawless, (Shaun) Whalley have all trained today, whether they’re going to be fit enough I’m not sure.

“Lawless I wouldn’t think would be available, Whalley maybe, but because they’ve trained today, its the following day you sometimes get a reaction to an injury.

“Curtley’s (Williams) not trained but he possibly will be all right, while Paul Benson has done some training and we’ll talk to the physio a bit later on today.”

The varying fitness levels of Whalley and Lawless have played a part in Still’s loan window dealings too as he continued: “There’s a couple of things we can do, but I’m going to chat with the physio first.

“When you bring someone in, the people who have been out mysteriously are fit and I think if we’ve got Lawless and Shaun Whalley, people that can go past somebody as opposed to being a tricky player, we may not need it.

“That’s not to say we don’t do it, but I’ll have a chat with the physio today to see how close those people are.”

“All these things are happening, but not happening as quick as we would like it, but it’s football and I have to accept that.”

Midfielder Jonathan Smith completed his first 90 minutes since suffering a horrific double leg break against Barnet on Boxing Day and hasn’t report any reaction.

Still said: “I spoke to him after and he was okay, I spoke to him today, he was a bit tired but okay.

“In terms of his fitness, we knew he’d been okay, it was whether there’d be a technical issue as he wasn’t really using the ball.

“But we’ll see how he is tomorrow. He’s done a very light session today with all the lads who played Saturday, so we’ll just look at how he is tomorrow and won’t make decision until then.”

New signing Nathan Doyle still isn’t ready to feature, although Still hinted he might be available for the trip to Cambridge on Saturday.

He said: “Nathan is a week further up the road. He’s not ready yet, he’s pushing on with his training, so he’ll push on with that this week and we’ll see where he is at the end of the week.

“It’s really important that it’s when he’s ready. He worked hard this morning and will be out this afternoon, tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon and Wednesday.

“He needs a full week to get him up to proper speed, but he’s a lot better in training this morning than he was last Monday.”

That leaves just Andy Parry as the only long-term injury concern as Still added: “He’s just ready to train now, but is quite a way behind.”

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