Summer signing Saville is providing the 'voice' that Luton boss wanted
Midfielder called up by Northern Ireland this week
Summer signing George Saville is providing the ‘voice’ both in the dressing room and on the pitch that Luton manager Matt Bloomfield was desperate for when he made the midfielder his first signing of the transfer window.
Having been released by Millwall in June, the 32-year-old, who had played the last 11 years in the Championship for the Lions, Middlesbrough and Wolverhampton Wanderers, made the decision to drop down to League One in a bid to help Luton earn their place back in the second tier following an embarrassing relegation last term.
Since arriving at Kenilworth Road, Saville has made an excellent start to life with his new club, starting all four matches and scoring his first goal in the 1-0 win over Wigan Athletic on Tuesday night. The midfielder’s stats make for good reading too, leading the way in interceptions, while he also averages 1.3 tackles per game, and also has the most fouls in the team, with 1.8 per match, although his only booking so far came for dissent in midweek.
On the ball, Saville has impressed as well, with an assist for Mads Andersen’s header in the 2-0 success over Peterborough United, also making 1.5 key passes per game, with a passing success rate of just under 85 percent, the highest in the Town squad thus far. That form has seen the midfielder earn another call-up to the Northern Ireland squad for their World Cup qualifiers against Luxembourg and Germany next month, as he will look to add to his 60 caps already won for his country.
Discussing Saville’s growing influence on the squad, Bloomfield said: “Sav is a thoroughly, thoroughly proper guy, straight down the line. What you see is what you get with Sav and we really felt that needed that element to our midfield, that element to our squad, the leadership, the character, doing all those bits on and off the pitch. I think he does a lot in the game that maybe gets missed as it’s not the bits at the top of the pitch that catch the eye so it was so lovely for him to get his goal.
"He’s been a midfielder that’s got goals from midfield during his career as well, maybe not in the later years, but certainly earlier on. I think he’s been very, very good. He’s growing into the role, he’s growing into the performances and someone who we were really keen to get in the summer and someone who I’m so pleased to have at our football club. He comes with that authority. He’s still playing international football, part of the Northern Ireland squad, someone who has played in the Championship for a number of years, but he’s here to contribute.
"When I spoke to him in the summer, I asked him to be a voice, be a leader in the dressing room. Again that leadership group of seniors is so important. You get a good senior group you’ve got half a chance and we feel like the characters we’ve got in that group have been very good so far and I have no reason to see why that doesn’t change. Sav is a big part of what we’re doing and we’re really pleased with what he’s doing.”
Saville has played 314 minutes for the Hatters this term, as he was signed to have a major impact on the side, having averaged over 40 games a season in the last eight years. It was the kind of robustness nature that Bloomfield was incredibly eager to bring in during the summer, having witnessed an increasing number of players miss out with injury during his first five months in charge. Speaking ahead of the campaign, he stated: “If you look at his career at Millwall, he’s always ticked off high numbers of games in the middle of the pitch.
"I thought he was excellent when we played Millwall. We’d just come to the club and he seemed to land on every second ball, moving people around. He’s a real leader again, another big voice in the dressing room and on the pitch, which is really crucial down the spine with losing Carlton (Morris) at the top of the pitch. We felt we needed to replace that leadership, and an out of possession midfield player is what I felt that we really lacked and we’ve brought that in Sav.
“We’ve tried to recruit robustness if we can, as we want to have a group together for more time this season. It’s never perfect, it’s never a guarantee, but we’ve tried to use that as one of our recruitment strategies in the summer to get a more robust group, out on the grass more often and out on the pitch on a Saturday.”
Discussing his own availability over the past few years, plus his leadership qualities, Saville, who began his career as a youngster with Premier League side Chelsea, added: “I think I’ve always had that voice, always had that influence. Hopefully it’s a good influence on the boys, so I’ll maintain doing that off the pitch and on the pitch, be a leader as much as I can and try and give as much positive influence as I can. My injury record’s been really good, so hopefully that’s not a problem, we don't have to question that, we don’t have to go into that. I look to play every game I can, every game I’m fit and available.”