Jones finally has his squad in place

Hatters boss Nathan Jones believes he has finally got the streamlined squad he desired in place at Kenilworth Road.
Hatters boss Nathan JonesHatters boss Nathan Jones
Hatters boss Nathan Jones

The Luton chief, who took over in January, was determined to cut down the vastly inflated playing personnel he inherited from previous manager John Still, while bringing in his own players too.

Jones has managed to do that over the course of pre-season, with eight new additions, as when asked if he feels the squad is now his, he said: “Yes, I think so. It wasn’t a clean slate, but I was able to move a sufficient number of ones out and the ones we’ve retained, there’s no-there that we don’t want.

“The people here that were here last year did very well for me, lets not forget that.

“It wasn’t about a clear out it was about evaluate the squad and see who we can move forward with.

“I think the ones we are moving forward with have been excellent because there were some excellent players here when I got here. It wasn’t all doom and gloom when I got here, just results hadn’t gone to plan, and inevitably that leads to a change in manager.

“When I came here had a group that wanted to work hard, and I think we did very, very well, it was probably underestimated how well we did.

“So I’m very pleased with the squad we’ve got, I like coming in and seeing them every day, they bring joy to me with their training ethic and how they go about their work.

“They want to learn, want to get better, so I’m very pleased with what we have here.”

Crystal Palace midfielder Jake Gray was the final arrival on Monday afternoon and Jones also confirmed that was the last piece of business he was looking to do ahead of the transfer window closing at the end of the month, adding: “Yes, we’ve done what we want to do. We wanted a 20 man squad with the keepers outside that, we have that, have at least two in every position.

“Credit to the club as I said, the club have been fantastic, Gary and the board.

“I haven’t gone there and said I wanted a kangaroo or anything outrageous, I’ve said ‘this is who we’d like, can we get them?’ And along the way we’ve managed to get a great group, a competitive squad that we’re happy with.

“Bringing in my complete staff was a big thing and not only have we recruited quite well, we’ve managed to keep hold of a few of our desirable young players in terms of Jack (Marriott) in terms of Pelly (Mpanzu), in terms of Cameron McGeehan as they have all attracted interested.

“We have now a good competitive squad, a hungry squad.

People have mentioned it’s young, not all of them are young, we’ve got good experience, we’ve got a good balance within our side and I’m happy.

“We did our due diligence on our recruitment and the players we wanted and praise the lord we managed to get them.”