Edwards happy to blood Town's impressive youngsters but only if they deserve first team opportunity

Luton boss Rob Edwards admitted he would love to blood some of the Development squad in the first team this season, but only if they are deserving of the opportunity.

In recent games, academy graduate Casey Pettit has been on the bench for the Hatters’ Championship matches, with recent addition Jayden Luker, who signed from Lambeth Tigers in the summer, travelling with the match-day squad as well.

Defender Josh Williams made his senior debut during the 3-2 Carabao Cup defeat to Newport County earlier this year, while Conor Lawless and Zack Nelson have both been training with at the Brache in the last few months as well.

Nelson starred for the U18s in their terrific 6-0 FA Youth Cup victory at Birmingham City recently, scoring a hat-trick to set up a fourth round tie with QPR U18s, as although Edwards has been impressed with the talents coming through the ranks, he knows any chance must be earned, saying: “They’ve trained with us from day one and came out to Dubai with us, so, in the first few weeks, we’ve been able to see a lot of our younger players.

“Obviously, our youth team are doing very well and there are some players in the 18s that have trained with us, so we’re very lucky that we’ve got a lot of good young players around.

“Nothing would give us more pleasure than being able to blood some of them as well, but they have to deserve it.

“To deserve it, you’ve got to dislodge one or two very good senior players at the moment, which is what you want.

“We’re very pleased with some of the youth players.

"The guys in the academy are doing a very good job, setting high standards for those youngsters and they’re certainly showing that in the training and the games as well.”