Hatters skipper Bradley ready to play for Luton if called upon after returning from serious knee injury

Town defender Sonny Bradley is ready to fill Town’s defensive void against Swansea City this weekend if called upon.

The 31-year-old hasn’t played for Luton since suffering what looked a horrific knee injury when landing awkwardly during the 0-0 draw with Reading back on November 1.

However, he returned to the bench for Tuesday night’s draw against Millwall, despite having not been involved in any Development squad matches recently.

When Gabe Osho went off with 18 minutes remaining to add to Town’s defensive concerns, boss Rob Edwards already without Reece Burke and Dan Potts, midfielder Luke Berry was introduced as the hosts looked to grab an equaliser, the move paying off as the substitute popped up to make it 2-2 with three minutes left.

On whether Bradley would need some game-time ahead of a recall to the Luton XI, Edwards said: “Not necessarily.

"That would be the case normally, but players these days now, they are very fit and once they’ve been back in training for a while, there’s a lot more science behind it these days.

"You try and make sure, you can’t recreate a game if you’re not playing a game, but you can do a lot of the work that kind of recreates the running, the tempo and the speed of it.

"So if Sonny is needed, he’ll be ready.”

One player who did drop into the back three recently was long-serving midfielder Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu, that happening during the second half of Saturday’s 1-0 win at Birmingham City when Burke was forced off.

When asked if that was something he might look to do again due to injuries, Edwards continued: “He’s an option as well.

"It’s not something I’ve considered so far right now, that was obviously an in-game option, but we can do, we can go that way.

"We can change shape, so there’s loads of different options that we’ve got, whether it's personnel or whether it’s changes to the shape of the team.

"I’m not concerned, we’ve got lots of different ways we can go about, Pelly was a really good option for us in the Birmingham game, during the game.”

Meanwhile, Luton have played almost exclusively a back three under Edwards, although on if he would consider changing that to a four as he did in the latter stages of the midweek draw, Fred Onyedinma and Alfie Doughty as the full backs, the boss added: “If we needed to, we changed to that during the game on Tuesday to get back in the game, so the lads have been comfortable.

"They have done it before as a back four, so it is an option that we’ve got.”