Lawless ruled out of Forest Green reunion

MIDFIELDER Alex Lawless has been ruled out of the Hatters Blue Square Bet Premier trip to Forest Green Rovers on Tuesday night with a hip injury, writes Mike Simmonds.

The 27-year-old, who made over 100 appearances for Forest Green earlier in his career, only lasted 10 minutes of the FA Trophy clash at Guiseley on Saturday.

Town boss Richard Money said: “He took a strong knock in a very unusual position and has bruised his hip bone which is sore as everybody knows.

“He had to come off after 10 minutes and won’t be taking any part tomorrow which he’ll be disappointed about as he had a spell at Forest Green earlier in his career.

“Hopefully by the weekend it should have settled down, but there is no guarantees on that.”

Recent loan signing Paul Carden is favourite to return to the side, but there are still no places for the injured duo of Shane Blackett and Ed Asafu-Adjaye.

Money continued: “We feel that we’ve got 18 players who are well equipped and have a good knowledge of this league and Paul is one of those.

“(Dan) Gleeson was injured Saturday, but hopefully he’ll be back tomorrow. Blackett is still coming back from his groin operation, while Eddie has a mixture of injuries, his back and hamstring, which is probably related to the same diagnosis and won’t be involved. Apart from that everyone is fit and well.”

Rovers, who were thumped 6-1 by Hatters at Kenilworth Road back in October, have improved greatly in recent weeks, going five home games withouth defeat, and thrashed Tamworth 4-0 on Saturday to move up to 18th in the table.

Money said: “There’s no easy games at any stage in this competition and least of all now. If you look at their home record they’ve only lost four times. We saw them last week, Alan (Neilson) and I at Grimsby and they played very well.

“It’s an unusual place for a football team with it being such a small village. They’re obviously a well-run football club and worthy opponents as they’ve proved themselves to be more than capable of playing at this level.

“They’re much, much changed from the team that played at Kenilworth Road earlier in the season, far more of a threat. It’s a tough game as they all are, but especially at this stage of the season as everybody has something to play for.”

The Hatters boss faces a testing decision on who to play upfront, as Matthew Barnes-Homer returned to the starting line-up at Guiseley on Saturday and scored the winner, while Danny Crow put in an excellent second half display after coming off the bench.

With Lloyd Owusu and Jason Walker in the mix too, Money added: “Bringing Danny on at half time forced the team, encouraged the team to put an extra pass in and link it through him and we looked a much better team for it.

“It was very pleasing for Matthew to come back in the team and score a good goal. It wasn’t easy and never is one against one with the keeper, but he slotted it in really nicely.

“Danny came on and gave us a different type of performance which I think it going to be important.

“On goals to games ratio, we are still the leading scorers in the league and we’ve got our goals from a lot of positions. I think we’ll continue to do that because our movement is better than anybody else’s, but when our strikers start to pitch in, it certainly helps.”