Morris insists it would be one of the 'stories of the season' if Luton stay up after 'ridiculous' injury situation

Luton striker Carlton Morris believes it would be one of the ‘stories of the season’ if the Hatters could overcome the ‘ridiculous’ luck they have suffered with injuries and remain in the Premier League.

The Hatters took on AFC Bournemouth at the weekend without 10 first team players available to them, Marvelous Nakamba, Sambi Lokonga, Elijah Adebayo, Sambi Lokonga, Chiedozie Ogbene, Mads Andersen, Jacob Brown, Amari’i Bell, Gabe Osho and Dan Potts all missing, meaning that teenagers Joe Johnson, Zack Nelson and Axel Piesold were named on the bench.

It has been like that for a number of weeks now, Reece Burke also sitting out Wednesday night's 2-0 defeat to Arsenal, meaning that 16-yera-old Christian Chigozie was part of the match-day squad. The lack of availability has meant Town have been unable to really push on since beating Brighton & Hove Albion 4-0 back in January, then getting a point in the 4-4 draw at Newcastle United, going 10 matches without picking up three points.

However, the depleted squad were somehow able to muster a result against AFC Bournemouth on Saturday, as trailing 1-0 with an hour gone, Luke Berry and Fred Onyedinma came on to change the course of the game, Jordan Clark drawing the hosts level and then Morris himself winning it in the 90th minute with his ninth goal of the campaign.

Speaking afterwards, Morris said: “I’ll be honest, it’s been a tricky one for me whether I’ve wanted to talk about it or not, but it’s getting to the ridiculous point now where we’ve got so many injuries. It’s hard not to speak about it at this point, but at the end of the day we’ve got enough lads to put a good starting XI together and the pressure is on us to stay on it and keep doing it every week now.

“I believe it (staying up) would be one of the stories of the season for sure. It’s been against us, it has. It’s pointless shying away from it now or to stop talking about it, because it has been against us with the amount of injuries we’ve had. But we’re capable of doing it, we’re not going to give up, we’ve got character.”

Team-mate Clark, who got Luton on level terms with his first ever Premier League goal, firing into the bottom corner after being found by Berry’s block challenge, believes that not having any more three game weeks during the season finale will definitely count in their favour. He added: “The manager never makes excuses and I’m not, but we’ve been decimated. You can count the players who would probably be starting for us, so it’s frightening.

"But credit to the lads who have had to go on a Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday. We’re lucky it’s Saturday, Saturday, the Friday game is Everton, so we can now prepare and rest up a lot more. We know whoever is going to go out there is going to give everything for this club. We believe that we can stay up, we’ve got to be at it every game and the gaffer knows whoever he picks is going to make an impact.”