Town assistant confident Luton have the strikers to cope with Cornick and Jerome exits

Luton assistant boss Paul Trollope is confident Luton have enough strength in depth upfront for the second half of the season despite the departures of both Harry Cornick and Cameron Jerome in the transfer window.

With a forward group that included Carlton Morris, Elijah Adebayo and Cauley Woodrow going into January, Town saw that hit by the duo leaving, Jerome leaving by mutual consent to join League One Bolton Wanderers and Cornick going to fellow second tier side Bristol City in the final hours of deadline day.

Town did however, bring in young Peterborough United prospect Joe Taylor and recalled Admiral Muskwe from his loan move at Fleetwood Town to bolster their attacking ranks, as Trollope said: “As a football club you’re always looking to the future, looking to progress, looking to improve, in the short term, but the medium and longer term.

“We thought with young Joe there was an opportunity to get someone who’s a good prospect, who’s been on the club's radar for a while, so we’re pleased to get him in.

“Sometimes you have to look from within, so Admiral comes back and we’re going to have a good look at him.

“It’s a change of management from when he was here before, so there’s players who are going to get a chance that are in the building that we’re excited about.

“We’re excited about working with young players, certainly on the way up in their careers.”

Losing someone of Jerome’s experience, the 36-year-old having played almost 700 games in his near 20-year career, is something that Town will have to deal with too, as Trollope continued: “Experience is good and Cameron has done fantastically well for us.

“Cameron was a great servant, we’ve only been here two, three months, but Cam had done ever so well, not only on the pitch but off the pitch.

“His experience, his character as well, his attitude was exemplary and it really rubbed off on the other players.

“But when time is up on things it’s up and you have to move on for the future of the team, for the future of the squad and the football club.

“With Cameron and Harry we obviously wish them really well and hopeful they continue to do good things.

"But for us it’s very much now the window is shut, moving on, working really hard with what we've got, working really hard to improve what we've got and develop those players within our squad.”

Trollope remains convinced that despite losing two players with around 1,000 first team appearances between them, he, along with manager Rob Edwards and fellow assistant Richie Kyle, plus the rest of the backroom staff, can help the younger players fill that void.

He said: “As a management team and a coaching team we do pride ourselves on developing players and developing what we've got in the building.

"Hopefully some of that is evident already and we’re pleased with the progress of certain players.

"We've worked very hard as a team and also individually and collectively as a unit.

"The new signings will come into that, we will be working hard to develop the younger players.”

Meanwhile, with Woodrow playing in a deeper role, behind a front two of Morris and Adebayo on Tuesday night, there was another name that could be thrown in the hat for a forward berth, as Trollope added: “Cauley is a flexible striker, he can play up top, he can play in behind and he's certainly shown his quality.

"But for all three strikers that we've got, plus the young ones, we've got Fred (Onyedinma) who can play up there as well, so we have got some options.

"Having seen them and having worked with them now for a few months, we really believe there's more.

"There’s a lot of potential, there’s huge potential to improve individually.

"They've all done well individually and they've done well as a unit at times, but we feel there's a lot of improvement to come from them and well be certainly working hard to do that.”