Hatters boss confirms no approach from Leeds for Justin

Luton chief Nathan Jones denied that Championship giants Leeds United have submitted a bid for talented full back James Justin.
Hatters defender James Justin in action against NewcastleHatters defender James Justin in action against Newcastle
Hatters defender James Justin in action against Newcastle

The 19-year-old, who has recently won his place back in the side, starting the last five games barring the Checkatrade Trophy defeat on Tuesday night, had attracted serious offers in the summer, with Town turning down a seven figure sum from Nottingham Forest.

There was renewed speculation that the Elland Road outfit might be the latest high profile club to test Hatters’ resolve for their defender, who signed a long term contract until 2020 in July, although Jones said: “We’ve not had anything official, but there’s a lot of people talking about James Justin.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“We had 36 scouts here the other day, which is a phenomenal amount of scouts for any football game, let along our Checkatrade game.

“If I was to put every single one of our players on the transfer list, I would imagine we would earn a hell of a lot of money, but we’re not in the business of doing that.

“We’ve taken a long time and a lot of hard work to assemble this fine squad we have, we like testing it, what we don’t like doing is losing them.

“We’ve got a lot of good footballers here, now whether we get bids is one thing, whether we accept them is a million miles from whether we get them or not.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Because we want to achieve something here, we regularly turn down approaches for staff, players at this football club, so we’re used to that.

“We have a focus and a goal of what we want to achieve and that means keeping hold of your best players."

During the last transfer window, Jones admitted to losing a bit of focus dealing with striker Isaac Vassell’s long and drawn out move to Birmingham City.

However, he doesn’t expect a similar episode this time around, adding: “It does cause a little bit of disruption, but we anticipated that because we knew of interest for Vassell from July, it’s just we tried to make him see that another year at this football club wasn’t detrimental to his development.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“As it proved that’s 100 per cent correct. You couldn’t envisage him getting injured, but being at this football club would not have set him back one iota.

“It’s sometimes difficult to make people think that, but we have a group of players who are focused on doing well.

“If something ridiculous comes in, then that turns heads, but we’re not envisaging anyone having the clout to be able to do that, so hopefully we should pass unscathed.”