Brill glad to see Luton stopper Sluga adapt to life in the Championship

Former Hatters keeper Dean Brill is glad to see current number one Simon Sluga show he is getting to grips with the Championship.

The Croatian international joined Luton in the summer for a club record fee, but had a tough time to begin with, eventually dropped after two costly errors against Derby County, with James Shea coming in.

However, Sluga returned to the side during the Christmas period and has started the last 11 league games, keeping his first clean sheet in the 1-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday.

He extended that to three shut-outs before the season was postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic last month, making a wonderful point-saving stop in injury time at Wigan Athletic in Town’s last fixture.

Brill, who played 109 times for the Hatters over two spells at Kenilworth Road said: “I haven’t actually seen him play yet, but with regards to the level, it’s different for him.

“He’s a Croatian international, he’s come from a different league, a different culture and I saw an interview with the manager (Graeme Jones) saying ‘you’ve got to give this guy a chance.’

“He’s learning a new language, he’s living in a hotel, learning a new style of football.

“We’re English boys, we watch the Championship, we know what it’s about and it probably still takes us time to get used to it.

“It’s good to see he’s actually adapting now and then fruits of that signing are starting to come out.”

Brill, who still gets to Kenilworth Road when possible after moving on to the coaching staff at League Two side Leyton Orient recently, has been impressed with some of the talent that Town possess this term.

He continued: "James Collins, his goalscoring record stands for itself.

"I really liked the boy Izzy Brown too, he looked like he had real quality and could make something happen.

"I know the boy (Andrew) Shinnie from Scotland, I played with his brother (Graeme), he’s another good player.

"It’s good to see some of the other ones like (Pelly) Ruddock who has come all the way through, he's really improved and hopefully when we get this season back going, whenever that might be, they can really kick on and use that momentum."

The Hatters had finally hit some kind of form before the campaign was halted, winning three, drawing two and losing one of their previous six games.

Brill hopes they can continue that kind of run to stay up if and when the season restarts.

He added: “The games I’ve seen, they’ve never really been run over.

“There’s been a couple of games where they’ve conceded quite a few goals, but I think they’ve really been close in a lot of the games I’ve seen.

“Maybe the back end of the season they’ve just realised what it takes at this level.

"I think we (Orient) found that out just before Christmas, sometimes you go up a level and you think 'we’ll be good, we’ll be fine,' but there are actually different bits to the season that you have to work out.

“Hopefully once it starts again, they’ve worked it out and they can stay up.”