Hatters are hopeful of Lawless injury recovery

Lawless missed the weekend’s 2-1 victory at title rivals Forest Green Rovers with a foot injury he sustained in the 2-0 cup victory at Cambridge United the week before.

The 29-year-old proved the difference between the two sides when Boro visited Kenilworth Road in the league two-and-a-half weeks ago, netting a brace of late goals to propel the Hatters to victory.

Buckle said: “Alex will go close this week. Hopefully he will make it in time. We are just giving him an extra few days really.”

They are also looking to reassess long-term injury problem Danny Spiller who was forced off after 27 minutes because of his troublesome achilles in last week’s development game.

Buckle is hopeful it’s nothing ‘major’ though, saying: “Spiller is just a little bit sore. We are still looking at that one.

“He has not done anything major with it. It’s just a little bit of soreness and doing quite a bit over a number of days and playing a game.

“You are not going to come back and be 100 per cent. I think he will have to go through the pain barrier a bit to get to where he needs to get to.”

However, the Hatters will again have to shuffle things around, especially at the back, with most of their loan players unavailable.

Buckle added: “We’ve had to do that with (Simon) Ainge being cup-tied and the situation with Connor (Essam). It’s chopped and changed but the players have coped well with that.

“With Janos (Kovacs) coming in and doing well it just shows you the benefit of giving a player a rest for a bit.

“We’ve got Janos who can play at the weekend and (Lathaniel) Rowe-Turner can play centre-half as well. Whichever back four we put out will do what will be required.”