Hatters defender found out via Zoom call that Luton boss Jones had left Kenilworth Road

Hatters defender Matty Pearson has admitted that he and the rest of the Town squad found out via a Zoom conference call that manager Graeme Jones had left the club.

Last Friday, Luton announced that Jones' contract had been terminated by mutual consent in a bid to 'reduce its cost base' along with assistant Gary Brabin, plus coaches Inigo Idiakez and Imanol Etxeberria.

However, Pearson, who was a first team regular under Jones, starting every single Championship clash, didn't have an inkling until told by head of recruitment Mick Harford, who is now acting as relationship manager between the board, staff and the playing squad on football matters.

Speaking the to club's official website, the centre half said: “I don’t think any of the lads were expecting it, but that’s football.

“The situation we are in is a very strange one.

"The club have got to do what’s right by the club, so they’ve obviously taken their decision.

"We’ve all got to stand by that decision now. It’s happened.

“Mick got us on a call and said what everyone knows now, that the manager and a few of the staff had left, and we’ll stick together exactly the same as when Nathan Jones left, with Mick in charge.

"We’ve been through it before, we know what we are doing, so we fully back Mick to take the reins and put us all into place.

“He has set up a couple of Zoom calls to keep us all in touch with what’s going on.

"We’ve all had a bit of a chat on there and the last one we had the full squad on, so you can imagine doing these Zoom calls with 35 players on, it does get noisy and the banter’s flying around.

“We’ve had that, we all know where we stand now and in regards to what’s happening now – I think we are in the same boat as the fans."

With no immediate end in sight to the current lockdown rules the country is under, Pearson has no idea if and when the Hatters will return to league action any time soon.

He added: "It’s out of our control, it’s out of the club’s control, so we are waiting on the Government and the league to make a decision on what’s going forward.

"We are all on standby for whatever they want and on call to go back in and train.”