Duo back Hatters to come strong

Hatters striker Danny Hylton has backed manager Nathan Jones' claims that his side will get even stronger during the second half of the season.
Danny Hylton celebrates his leveller against CarlisleDanny Hylton celebrates his leveller against Carlisle
Danny Hylton celebrates his leveller against Carlisle

The Luton boss has stated on a number of times recently how he believes the squad in place at Kenilworth Road is in the perfect position to make a strong push for promotion in the second part of the campaign.

Although Town head to Blackpool this weekend trailing leaders Plymouth by nine points and the top three by seven, Hylton said: “We’re bang on it on the fitness side, sports science side, we’ve got fit players in there who can run all day.

“So yes, I believe that fitness-wise we will (challenge).

“The gaffer and the staff we have, I’m sure everyone’s going to keep improving.

“It’s the time of the year when you can get some momentum. With the games being so close together, you can find yourself pushing at the right end of the table.”

Recalled defender Dan Potts was of a similar view as he pointed to the quality of players not even involved on a match-day at times.

He said: “It’s a hell of a squad if you look at it on paper. We’ve got players left out every week who would do a very good job in the team.

“We’re going to need that coming into 2017. It’s a good group, professional group, we do the work and don’t get many injuries at all.

“We’ve got a big squad and fresh legs to come in whenever need be. Training’s as intense as games, everyone’s fit, everyone’s ready to play, everyone wants to play and there’s plenty of positives.

“I think that we could come good in the new year.”

Jones reiterated his belief once more after the draw with Carlisle United on Saturday, as he said: “It was important not to lose but we wanted to win as we want to get closer (to the top three).

“We’ve got three good games coming up which we want to take as many points as we can from, which leads us nicely into the new year.

“We think we’ll be strong in the new year, because of the squad, because of how we train, what we have, so we’re not preoccupied in any way.”

On the threat of this weekend’s opponents, who could overtake Luton with a victory after five wins in seven league games has seen them rise to seventh, Hylton said: “They’re a decent team,every team’s got their own different threat.

“So I’m sure we’ll watch some videos on them, be aware of their good players.

“We’ll do our best to make sure they don’t affect the game and go down there doing what we always do, going into every game trying to win it and believing that we can.”

Potts was confident Luton have every chance of adding to their four away victories thus far too, saying: “It’s another tough game, but away from home we’ve been good this year and picked up some good results.

“We’ll do our homework on them and I’m pretty positive we’ll get a good result there.”

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