Form on the road so far this campaign has been strong, with the Hatters currently holding the fifth best record in the division. With three wins back-to-back against Swansea City, Cardiff City and Hull City, the ambition is to continue that rich vein of form.
However, injuries have plagued Jones’ squad at the start of October, which led to the gaffer stressing the need for the squad to play its part in the coming games.
“That is why we need the squad and that is why we recruit,” Nathan Jones said during his pre-match press conference. “We’ve added competition in all areas because they know they’re going to play. It’s one of those things, we’ve picked up a couple of things, innocuous things from training or from games so that was frustrating last week but we’re in a better position than we were Tuesday.”
Centre-back Reece Burke will remain sidelined, the manager confirmed, after he suffered a hamstring injury against Hull City.
“He’ll be out. Not a significant amount of time, but it will be weeks and then we have to judge that then. He’s so important to us, it’s really unfortunate, because he’s been in fine form and he’s the type of important player we want.
"He's aggressive, which was something that not many said about Reece Burke before he came here, but he's a real aggressive centre half now, athletic, and he’s just picked up a fatigue injury.
“We’ve got to manage him as it’s not just about getting him back and coming back from that, the demands we put on them, we don’t want to put him in any danger, so it’s unfortunate, but we’ll manage that, it will be weeks, how many we don’t know yet, it’s how he reacts to everything, so we won’t put a timescale on that.”
The Welshman was able to confirm that Henri Lansbury was in need of a rest, rather than an injury leading to his substitution on Tuesday night against Huddersfield Town.
“He had two games in quick succession and after coming back from injury, not having a full pre-season it was always going to be tough.
"We had a word and thought if we were going to give him 10 minutes and then make a sub, but at half-time it doesn’t class as a sub, so we made that decision and we felt Pelly needs the minutes because he hasn’t got rhythm yet so the longer he gets, the better he gets quicker. It was a decision we took, Henri wasn’t his energetic self so we felt we needed to do something.”
Sticking with the positive theme, Jones is hoping Alfie Doughty will soon play his part after an injury-plagued pre-season and start to life at Kenilworth Road.
“He’s come back from injury, he had a decent pre-season and then he got injured against West Ham and that’s what killed us a little bit. He’ll be a big player for us, he’s training at a fantastic level, wonderful, wonderful level and he’s been unfortunate. He’s had to bide his time, but he’ll play a lot a lot of games, and do very well, he’s in wonderful form in training and it’ll only be a matter of time before he gets his opportunity.”
