Even old sparring partner Sol Davis was surprised to see former captain Kevin Nicholls in the Hatters' dressing room before the 3-0 home defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday.

And while it turned out to be an error-strewn performance from the hosts, Davis was delighted to have his old friend back at the club.

He said: "It's brilliant to have him back. I'm glad to have him here to help out."

And Davis had no hesitation in handing over the captaincy to Nicholls when he arrived as a substitute on the hour.

He said: "Of course he is (our captain], he's Nico. We will follow him – he's our captain.

"There's been whispers about it since he left. I was surprised to see him in the dressing room, I didn't know he would be here today."

And while Davis was glad the rigmarole of pre-season was over, he admitted he was concerned by Luton's mistakes and lack of venom at the other end. But he revealed he had been impressed by the centre-half pairing.

He said: "It's (pre-season] over, thank God. It's been tough.

"There's a lot of new faces in and hopefully we can get some consistency with the players we've got in.

"You can't win games without goals. We need to start scoring, especially when we are conceding easy ones like we did today.

"I think the lads were a bit tired today. They have had a tough week and didn't look as sharp as we have done before.

"They kept coming at us, but we didn't help ourselves by giving them goals."

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