Tinker man Still happy with all of his changes

Town chief John Still revealed that his changes for Tuesday night’s 3-0 win against Lincoln City were mostly enforced, writes Mark Wood.
Hatters boss John StillHatters boss John Still
Hatters boss John Still

The Hatters made five changes from the team that were embarrassed 5-1 by Gateshead at the weekend, while also alternating from a 4-4-2 formation to 4-3-3.

That change paid real dividends on the night as Town tore the Imps apart with wide attackers David Martin and Andre Gray to the fore.

Martin scored twice, and had two ruled out, while Gray also netted as Town’s stars showed the Luton boss he has options for next season.

He said: “It’s important I learn as much as I can about the players that we have here before the end of the season and the positions that they can play, it’s vital that I learn that.

“I don’t want to go into next season not knowing what the players here are capable of. Whoever’s here, I need to know all of their capabilities and that’s just a way of finding out.

“You know what, it can sometimes be frustrating for supporters if it doesn’t work, it can be really frustrating for supporters and I understand that.

“But I have to, it’s my job, I have to look at the bigger picture. The club employed me here to try and take this club to promotion, that’s what they’ve employed me to do.

“Doing that isn’t easy. If it was easy we’d all be doing it, everyone would be doing it, it’s difficult.

“Part of it is learning as much as you possibly can about the players that you don’t have the greatest knowledge about.

“The front three I felt their movement was very, very good, very pleased with that, but I thought that we were sound defensively.

“If you’re sound defensively it gives you a proper springboard and I think we were OK for that.”

The personnel changeswere mostly enforced though as he revealed: “Ronnie Henry’s having an operation on Thursday, so we really had to put him in. We have a little bit of a problem now Friday, but we will worry about that Friday.

“We didn’t have a right-back, we haven’t got a right-back at the moment. Jake Goodman was not really fit, so we had to put Simon Ainge there.

“Simon Ainge in this run of games was always going to play centre-half anyway, because I haven’t seen him play centre-half.

“So I need to do that so that was that reason. Scott Griffiths is still getting fit, he’s nowhere near fit at the moment so we didn’t play him Saturday and the idea really was to not play him Saturday and play him today.

“So that really took care of that one. Alex Lawless has been out and I wanted to get him out on the pitch as well and we need to get a look at him.

“Robbo (Matt Robinson) the same. I’ve been quite happy with him. But he’s a young boy so I’m not going crazy with him, but I just wanted once again to have a look at him.

“So really the changes sort of made themselves a little bit. It wasn’t anything really.

“I didn’t say we lost Saturday and I’m going to be drastic and do that, it really wasn’t a case of that if I’m honest.”

Still was particularly impressed with Ainge and his defence on the night, as he continued: “I thought he done very well. I thought the back four was very solid to be honest, particularly in light of the amount of long throws and free-kicks that were coming into our box against quite a big team.

“I felt we dealt with them terrific, I really felt we were very confident about how we dealt with those. I thought the back four today was very good, but I couldn’t look at an area, I couldn’t look at the back four, I couldn’t look at the midfield three, I couldn’t look at the front three and say that I was disappointed with any of it.”

Martin loved his more advanced position on the night and was pleased to have given Town’s fans something to cheer about.

“I’ve played in that formation before at previous clubs and your advantage is you can mix across the front three,” he said.

“You can take the defender into places he doesn’t really want to go and you’re hard to pick up.

“I definitely enjoyed playing the formation so I obviously got a lot of joy and got my two goals.

“The fans have been excellent since I’ve been here. Obviously they’ve been frustrated a few times and quite rightly so.

“The performances, they ain’t been good enough and a big club like Luton Town the expectations are high.

“I came here and I knew that. We put in a performance tonight and the fans appreciated it and that’s brilliant.”

Still has regularly tinkered with the squad since taking charge, but returning midfielder Alex Lawless has no issue with that.

He added: “I wouldn’t say so personally. All players are different and that’s part of football and part of the management side, just managing the players and stuff.

“Obviously there has been quite a transitional period going on with players leaving and players coming in.

“It can be difficult but if you take on board what people are saying to you you should do your job.”