Luton defender a doubt for Blades as Japanese international not quite ready for crucial Premier League clash

Hatters defender Teden Mengi is a doubt for tomorrow’s Premier League crunch clash against Sheffield United after suffering an ankle injury in training.

The former Manchester United youngster has been in wonderful form since breaking into the team back in October for the 2-1 home defeat to Burnley, starting 14 out of the next 16 top flight matches, only fully absent for the 4-0 victory over Brighton & Hove Albion last week due to a hip problem. He was immediately restored to the starting XI as Town picked up a point in a thrilling 4-4 draw at Newcastle United on Saturday, but could now miss tomorrow’s match along with fellow centre half Mads Andersen, who isn’t back from his calf issue yet.

Speaking in his pre-match press conference, Luton boss Rob Edwards said: “Mads isn’t okay, no. Teden has got a slight knock to his ankle, he felt that in training yesterday, other than that, it’s how we were.”

Meanwhile, the game also too soon for January signing Daiki Hashioka to be included after he joined from Belgian club Sint-Truiden recently. With the Japanese international arriving in Bedfordshire ahead of the 4-0 thrashing of the Seagulls, unveiled to supporters during the half time break, he was also at St James’ Park on Saturday taking on a watching brief as his new team-mates were involved in an eight goal thriller. However, Saturday is still too soon for the 24-year-old to be involved in a Premier League contest, as Edwards continued: “He’s still adjusting at the moment, we’ll still give him a little bit more time.

"There’s not too much need for us to adjust loads in the squad right now, so he’ll probably need another week or two. That’s good that we don’t have to rush him straight in as it’s a huge adjustment, being in another country and in this league especially. The two games that he's seen have been quite wild as well, so let’s give him a little bit more time.

Going into the game, Luton have scored four in both of their last two top flight matches, and should they repeat that this weekend, will become the first ever newly promoted side to do so in Premier League history. Edwards knows full well that won’t be easy even if they are facing a team sitting bottom of the table, without a win in seven league matches, and have conceded 59 goals already this term. He added: “It would be great if we did that, but the aim is to try and win the game and we’ll try and do that any way we can. It’s nice that we’ve scored a few goals of late, it’s difficult to do that in the league. We’ll celebrate and we’ll enjoy it, but we go into this game expecting a really, really difficult game, really difficult battle. Both teams are fighting for their lives and we expect it to be really tight.”