Luton chief wants to start clipping the average age of the Town squad after 'wonderful' transfer window

Luton manager Nathan Jones has begun to embark on the task of lowering the average age of the squad at Kenilworth Road.

The Town boss made seven new signings ahead of the window closing last Friday, with Jordan Clark the oldest at 27.

Tom Lockyer at 25 was the next oldest, with the remaining five all under 23, which took the average age to a round 23.

After watching the team who played Stoke on Saturday, contain eight members from the League Two squad, with only Simon Sluga, Martin Cranie and Rhys Norrington-Davies not around then, the average age of the Town’s side was just over 27.

Jones said: “What you have to understand is the average age was up a little bit, but I think eight of the starters on Saturday was our League Two side.

“We managed to get out of League Two with that team that’s playing and competing and is sixth in the Championship.

“So when the average age goes up is because they’ve been here, two, three, four years, it’s phenomenal really when you think about it.

“But then we’ve got to a point where to continue, to maintain and then to evolve, you have to look what’s underneath and to constantly clipping the average age as eventually certain people will move on, because it’s the nature of the beast.

“That’s what we have to make sure is the people we bring in now, we can see being here for four, five years, and then once they are, we will look again.

“It’s about constant, constantly evolving and that takes time.

"We never really signed many plus 31s for example.

“We signed Alan McCormack and we signed Alan Sheehan and they were vitals as we felt for the here and now were vital and what they brought to the club was gold dust.

“Then we brought the young ones under them who could develop and then we were at the point where we needed to just take it down a little bit, as we renewed five who were here who were in their mid to late-20s.

“So we knew we needed to clip the age a little bit and we feel we’ve done that, but it takes planning, it takes time, the board and the staff have been fantastic.”

A busy end to the transfer window saw Jones bring in Bristol City midfielder Joe Morrell on the Thursday, also adding MK Dons striker Sam Nombe and also Leicester City midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.

It concluded what Jones hailed as a tremendous summer business-wise, Norrington-Davies arriving from Sheffield United and James Bree from Aston Villa too, as he added: “We’ve had a wonderful window.

“I thank the board, I thank Gary (Sweet, chief executive) for the backing we’ve got.

“Obviously, we’ve got the majority of our ones on permanent, which is a real big prerequisite for us.

“And the ones that we weren’t able to, for reasons that the club value them, we took on loan, which goes against policy but, for those, we made an exception.

“Once we get everyone back then we think it’s the strongest squad that Luton have had for many a year and we’ve had some wonderful squads here and wonderful players.

“It’s significantly stronger than any squad that I’ve had here and we’re very pleased with that.

“It couldn’t have been a better one for us and probably over and above, as we were able to do a little bit of business in terms of we let Andrew (Shinnie) go to bring another one in and it gave us scope, so I think we’re in a real good place in terms of squad.”