Luton chief hails 'productive' international break for the Hatters

Town boss Nathan Jones felt it was a ‘productive’ international break for both his players who went away with their countries and those who stayed at home.

Midfielder Joe Morrell played in all three games for Wales, as he and full back Rhys Norrington-Davies made two starts for Wales, Tom Lockyer also playing in the 0-0 draw with the United States.

Striker James Collins had two further caps for the Republic of Ireland, while even Simon Sluga featured this time, making a third appearance between the posts for Croatia.

Jones said: “They have all gone away and got minutes.

“Tom Lockyer played 90 against USA, Rhys and Joe played two games and then James has got another start and so has Slugs, so it has been a productive one.

“Rhys is probably the only one that didn’t need minutes but we’re glad that everyone has gone.

"Rhys comes back in good form, played very well in both games, I thought he was excellent against Finland, so we’re in a good place.”

When asked whether their involvement could affect the quintet returning against Blackburn Rovers in the Championship this weekend, Jones said: “Of course, but it’s not like we’ve got a squad that we’ve got to bring them back in.

“The squad’s strong, we’ve had a bit of down time, we’ve managed to rest the ones that needed a rest, we’ve managed to get some work into the ones that needed the work and have had a good eight, nine days.

"I’m under no pressure to choose certain players because they’re internationals, we’ve got real good competition here.

"Whatever we choose to do, we’ll make the right decision because it’s not just Saturday, there’s Tuesday, Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday, it’s constant.”

There were a number of Covid outbreaks during the break for various international players, with Irish trio James McClean, Matt Doherty and Alan Browne all testing positive, as did Croatia's Domagoj Vida after playing the first half of their friendly with Turkey last Wednesday, the game Sluga started.

Jones admitted he had been watching on nervously to make sure his players came back healthy, as he continued: “You always do but there’s decent protocols in place from UEFA and international teams.

"They’re going to good countries in terms of Wales and Ireland, they’ll be very professional environments, those, so will the Croatian national team.

"There’s high-end professionalism there, so we’re very pleased with that.”

Meanwhile, on the players who stayed in England, Jones added: “The ones that have been here as well, some got minutes, Sam Nombe and James Bree got minutes at Birmingham (U21 game) so we are in a better place.

“Ironically some of the ones who needed a rest didn’t get it because they were away on international duty but we needed to get there because we were churning out games.

“It was a chance to deflate slightly, give them a few days off and then come back in and work hard, and that is what we did.

"We wanted to get there, it’s mentally tough as well as physically tough so it was good to get there.

"Now with the length of games coming up without a break, it was important we took advantage of this one.”