Town manager will make a quick decision on whether to offer ex-Dutch international a contract with Luton

Luton boss Rob Edwards will look to make a decision as soon as possible on whether or not to offer former Netherlands international Erik Pieters a contract with the Hatters.

The 35-year-old, who is currently a free agent having left fellow Championship side West Bromwich Albion this summer, turned out for Town during their 3-0 behind closed doors victory over Stevenage on Tuesday afternoon. Capped 18 times by his country, the left-sided player has a wealth of experience under his belt since starting out with FC Utrecht in August 2006, signed by PSV Eindhoven for a fee of around €2.5 million and also featuring extensively in the Premier League for Stoke City, who splashed out £3m for his services, and Burnley, who paid £1m to bring him to Turf Moor.

Released by the Baggies after playing 61 matches in total during his two years at the Hawthorns, Pieters played the opening 45 minutes of the victory in the week, and speaking about the chances of bringing him in, Edwards said: “He’s training with us, we’ll try and make a decision that’s best for everybody as quickly as possible on Erik. He’s a good guy, got good experience and he’s come in now. It’s obviously an option for us as he has tons of experience. He’s been in for around just over a week, played the game the other day and will get some minutes Saturday, so we’ll try and make a decision on that fairly quickly.”

Joining Pieters in the game was a player at the opposite end of his career, teenage defender Vladimir Paternoster, who has been with Shrewsbury Town’s academy and also played for National League South side Hemel Hempstead last term. He came on in the second half for 16-year-old Christian Chigozie, as Edwards continued: “It’s numbers on that last line at the moment with us missing a few. It was an opportunity for him, so him and Christian got half of a half each. They had quite a tough day the day before, we thought we’d better not give them 45, so they both did 22 and a half each. It was nice to see some of the young players getting minutes and that experience with our group.”

Although Town now begin their pre-season campaign in earnest, taking on Danish Superliga side AGF Aarhus in another behind closed doors contest at the weekend and then heading out to Slovenia for a warm weather training camp where they play FC Rukh Lviv and Göztepe, Edwards doesn’t expect the matches to be flooded with trialists, adding: “No, this (Pieters) is just one that came up that we were willing to see.”