Sweet admits Southampton would have to pay a 'higher price' to sign any Luton players in transfer window

Luton chief executive Gary Sweet has stated that should ex-boss Nathan Jones try and entice any of his former Hatters players to join him at Southampton during the January transfer window, he would have to shell out a ‘higher price’ in which to do so.

With all but two of the squad at Kenilworth Road originally signed by Jones during his two spells in charge at Kenilworth Road, and the other two Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu and Dan Potts, both being awarded new contracts in that time, some supporters are worried that their previous manager, who left Town for the Saints on Thursday, could come back in for the likes of Allan Campbell, plus top scorer Carlton Morris and fellow striker Elijah Adebayo.

Although there is nothing Luton could do if that is the case, Sweet did his best to reassure fans that the club were not looking to sell any of their squad to Southampton, or any other club for that matter, as he said: “It means they are no different to any other club right now.

"You can’t restrict movement on players, it would be illegal, frankly.

"If they come in in January, it means they have to pay a higher price than any other club if that is the case and that isn’t a message out to anywhere saying we have players available for sale in January, everybody knows what this business is like.

"If someone offered this football club enough money for me, I would probably sell myself and give the money to the club!

"The club needs money to carry on but they have to pay more than everybody else.”

Sweet did confirm restrictions are in place to prevent Jones from taking further members of the club’s backroom staff to Southampton though, as both assistant manager Chris Cohen and first team coach Alan Sheehan headed to the south coast with him.

There aren’t expected to be any further departures though, as the CEO added: “There are restrictions in the contract and when Nathan came back in, we stated that there are certain functions within the club that are club functions.

“A little word on Alan and Chris – they have done really well here.

“They’re good people and they are moving on to better their careers at the moment.

“They might regret it if we pass Southampton in the league table at some point in the future but they’re going on to good things.

“In a way, if a manager leaves you kind of don’t want him to leave on his own because if you bring a manager in, they always want to bring at least one, maybe two people with them who are people they trust and have worked with before, to create that bit of harmony.”