Blank Friday frustrates Hatters boss

Hatters boss Nathan Jones was frustrated that his side will be kicking their heels on Good Friday after the League Two fixture against Dagenham & Redbridge was postponed due to international call-ups.
Hatters boss Nathan JonesHatters boss Nathan Jones
Hatters boss Nathan Jones

After Luton bounced back from the 1-0 defeat to Crawley Town by beating Plymouth Argyle 1-0 at the weekend to make it five wins from six games, Jones was hoping to carry that form into the Kenilworth Road clash.

But with Clevid Dikamona in the Congo squad, while Andre Boucaud and Justin Hoyte are with Trinidad & Tobago, despite only Hoyte starting the Daggers defeat to Accrington Stanley on Saturday, it means Hatters don’t play until the Easter Monday trip to Barnet.

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Jones said: “We want to play the games now, we’d love a home game on Good Friday, a big crowd and keep that momentum going.

“As it is, we’ve got a little bit of a wait, then we go to Barnet and then we’ve got three home games and we have to make sure that we do well in those.

“It’s more frustrating if I’m honest, I just hope the international call-ups for Dagenham get to play.”

The extra few days off could allow Luton’s walking wounded a chance to recover, as Craig Mackail-Smith, Paddy McCourt and Dan Potts all went off injured at Home Park on Saturday.

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With Olly Lee missing due to an ankle problem and Josh McQuoid and Nathan Doyle only just back in training, it might give Town more options with their selection.

However, Jones continued: “In hindsight it might work out okay, but realistically we wanted to play.

“We’ve got momentum now, we want to play, we don’t want to delay it and then it adds to our further games.

“So I don’t know it it’s going to be positive or a negative in the end.

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“But we’ve got another nine days for the game, so we’ll regroup and then roll them out again.”

Striker Jack Marriott couldn’t hide his surprise that the game with the division’s basement side was off due to international call-ups.

He said: “I’ll be honest, I didn’t see that one coming.

“But it is what it is and we look forward to Barnet now and try to take the points.”

Luton could drop further away from the play-offs due to their inaction on Friday, and Marriott admitted he was keeping tabs on the situation, adding: “You always look at the table, but I think we’re just trying to take it game from game.

“We’ve won five in the last six, so hopefully we can take the three points from every game we’ve got coming up.”