Mullins available for Town as suspension ends

The 31-year-old picked up a second red card of the season against Wycombe Wanderers recently, ruling him out of the games against Cambridge, Cheltenham, Grimsby and Crawley.

However, Mullins is now free to play, and when asked if it was a boost to his squad, Luton boss Nathan Jones said: “Of course and we want everyone to be available. We hope that’s the end of our suspensions really because we’ve had too many this year.

“They haven’t affected us massively, because of the squad we’ve got, but it’s important we’ve got a full squad back and gives us good competition, but also good options.”

With Mullins back, boss Nathan Jones has a number of defensive options to select from, with Alan Sheehan partnering Scott Cuthbert at the weekend, while Glen Rea moved to the holding midfield role.

He continued: “There’s (Frankie) Musonda as well who’s pushing them daily in terms of a young player coming through, so we’ve got good experience in that area, got good options.

“It’s important because as I said with the games coming thick and fast, one, it gives you the option to freshen stuff up, but two, if you do pick up injury or knocks then we’ve got more than adequate replacements.”

Luton come up against a Pools side who recently appointed experienced former Southampton boss Dave Jones in charge, with Craig Hignett relieved of his duties in January.

So far, Jones has picked up one win, one draw and two defeats from his four matches in charge, with Hartlepool hammered 4-0 at Mansfield on Saturday, stretching their winless run away from home to nine games, with seven losses, stretching back to October 1.

Jones said: “I’ve come up against Dave at Cardiff and the teams he had at Wolves, he’s very, very experienced. Sheffield Wednesday too, so he’s been used to big clubs.

“He’ll bring a real level of experience and knowledge about him, and we’re always wary of form in this league, as it goes out of the window, especially when they come to Luton.

“So all we’ve got to focus on is doing our job and backing up what we did that the weekend.”

Luton have the chance to go third tomorrow, should they win and Carlisle, thrashed 4-1 by Blackpool on Saturday, lose at home to leaders Doncaster.

Although Jones has urged his side to not turn down another opportunity of making inroads to the automatic promotion places, he’s not looking at other results.

He added: “It’s important not to waste chances to go back to back home wins, as that’s what we want.

“It would be three including the Checkatrade game, so we’re in decent form.

“Away at Grimsby, apart from a penalty miss we should have won the game. Against Yeovil we were magnificent, Saturday we had to win a different way and we did.

“We’ve got to concentrate on our performance and make sure at half 10 tomorrow night we’ve got 52 points.

“We can’t affect what everyone else does, so that’s what we’ll be looking at.”