Town chief believes Adebayo’s form shows he was right to take the ‘big decisions’ and let fans’ favourites move on

Elijah Adebayo rises to control on his chest against Middlesbrough on Tuesday nightElijah Adebayo rises to control on his chest against Middlesbrough on Tuesday night
Elijah Adebayo rises to control on his chest against Middlesbrough on Tuesday night
Striker nets his eighth of the season in midweek win over Boro

Hatters Luton boss Nathan Jones believes the goalscoring form of forward Elijah Adebayo is proving that he made the right call in taking the ‘big decisions’ to let some of Town’s fans’ favourites move on in the summer.

The 23-year-old the club’s top scorer this term, with eight Championship strikes to his name, including a run of seven in his last eight matches.

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He has bagged 13 in 32 outings overall since moving from League Two Walsall on the final day of the transfer window back in February this year, and has already been given his own song by an adoring Hatters faithful.

By leading the line and hitting the net with such regularity, Adebayo has take on the mantle from James Collins as Luton’s number one striker, the former Crawley and Shrewsbury frontman moving to Cardiff on a free transfer in the summer, where he has struggled, without a goal in his opening 16 appearances.

Team-mate Harry Cornick recently admitted that with Luton’s leading marksman from the past three seasons moving on, someone who hit double figures in both of the Hatters Championship campaigns, has made him more selfish in front of goal, with seven to his name, and Jones felt that moving his side towards a more athletic front-line is paying dividends, with the Hatters up there with the highest scores in the division so far.

On Adebayo’s rise since arriving, he said: “It hasn’t quite been meteoric, but he’s come in as the thing about him, and I don’t want to be too disrespectful, we knew what we had in the building.

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“We knew we had to be patient, then there came a point last year where against Millwall and we just had to throw him in.

“It wasn’t quite happening with someone else, and we believed the way we were going it was towards an Elijah, with pace, with power, with real energy, with front-footedness, and everything we do, and that’s how we recruited.

“Now we made big decisions to let certain people go, fans’ favourites, people who had done well and I don’t just mean centre forwards, as I’ve been chastised for things like George Moncur and Kazenga (LuaLua) and Jake Howells (during his first spell in charge) and all those things, but we’re evolving into something.

“That’s what we want to do.

“People do wonderful for us, but there’s no place for sentiment really where we want to go and that’s what we had to do.

“Elijah’s evolved fantastically well, developing, but he’s still young, still has plenty to learn and we’re happy he’s ours.”

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