O'Donnell desperate to be involved in Town's play-off campaign

Defender Stephen O'Donnell would love to get the opportunity to stake his claim for place in Luton's League Two play-off side against Morecambe tomorrow.
Stephen O'Donnell clears against Barnet recentlyStephen O'Donnell clears against Barnet recently
Stephen O'Donnell clears against Barnet recently

The 24-year-old lost his place recently to James Justin with the youngster going on to start the last four games in the right wingback position.

O’Donnell has had to make do with watching on from the bench, and with Town finishing off their regular league campaign this weekend, the full back knows this is his last opportunity to impress boss Nathan Jones ahead of what he hopes will be a further three matches.

He said: “I just need to make sure that whenever I get the chance, hopefully there’s four massive games coming up, the Morecambe game would be nice to get some minutes, but the three after that will hopefully be massive games to be a part of and I’d love to be involved.

“I got promoted (with Partick Thistle in 2013), we won the league that year.

“A lot of the boys who have done it with other clubs in England, say if you get up through the play-offs, it’s the best way because it’s such a big occasion, the last game of the season, such a kind of hooray.

“But I’d have much rather be sitting here saying it was the last game on Saturday and we’re going to be watching the play-offs, as in we’re up, not eighth.

“I think we’ve got the squad that’s capable of going up automatically. We’re disappointed we didn’t but I think the play-offs will be a challenge, a bit more of a lottery.

“Fingers crossed we’ll come out of it as a League One club.”

O’Donnell hasn’t had a great deal of football recently, restricted to just six minutes in the 1-1 draw at Mansfield Town last month.

However, he did feature in the reserve team clash with Derby County at Kenilworth Road recently, setting up one of the goals in a 4-1 victory.

Whether that display would aid his chances of a recall, he added: “It’s difficult. Those games are more to make sure you’re ready if called upon I think.

“You’re damned either way in a reserve game. If you play well, you go knocking on the door saying you should be playing and they turn round say it’s a reserve game.

“Then you do badly and you knock on the door and they say you’ve done poor in a reserve game.

“So it’s just more of a personal thing reserve games and my own personal opinion is that I want to do well in every game I play.

“Sadly that doesn’t always happen. But I’ll always try, it was good to get a couple of assists, I’m a bit disappointed with myself for the last two games, so it was nice to get back on the pitch and put in a couple of assists and played pretty solid, so I was happy enough.”