UPDATED: Trio fit but Kovacs is still out

The Millwall youngster had five stitches put into a head injury after Tuesday night’s goalless draw at Nuneaton, but new Luton boss John Still expects him to be available if he is ‘brave’.

Giant Hungarian defender Janos Kovacs is still out with a hamstring problem, while Jon Shaw is back in contention and midfielder Arnaud Mendy has recovered from a knock that forced him off at Liberty Way.

Still said: “If he’s (Goodman) brave, and if he wants to play, he’ll play.

“I think Mendy picked up a knock and came off, but other than that really no problems. I wouldn’t rule him out for Saturday neither, I think he will be OK.

“In terms of recovery and everything we’re fine. Janos not training yet, Jon Shaw training. And Mendy training tomorrow.”

Still was disappointed with Luton’s performance against Nuneaton and is likely to make changes from the team there as he further assesses the playing resources at his disposal.

“I want to try and win but it’s a really important time for me for assessing players as well,” he said.

“I won’t go stupid and do it, but subtly I’ll do it just because I need to make assessments on all players, that’s important.”

Still though is relishing leading his side out for the first time at Kenilworth Road on Saturday and is desperate to deliver a winning side for Town’s faithful.

He continued: “I’m really quite excited by it. I’m the sort of person, I love the games. This is good, what we do training and that, but I love the games, good, bad or indifferent.

“Every game tells you something. It can tell you the good things and tell you the bad things.

“It’s my first home game, let it roll on, and I’m really looking forward to it.

“It’s a good game for us to play, playing in front of your own people that have an expectancy. Fantastic, that for me is the best thing to have to have people that want you to win, desperate for you to win. And as I say to all players, if you want to play for Manchester United don’t expect to go there and lose games and them to be happy, because they won’t be.

“They’ve got to go there and win games, make them happy, that’s their jobs, that’s what they’ve got to do.

“My job is to create a winning, ambitious, hungry, dedicated football team that this football club and its supporters of will be proud of. That’s my aim. I can’t sort of legislate for how supporters want to support the team, that’s out of my control, you can only control the controllables.

“I hope I produce them a product that then gives the supporters what they want. But I can’t control a hundred per cent of the supporters, I can control a hundred per cent of the footballers, but not the supporters. In my experience if they see a hungry, ambitious, winning football team, it’s very unusual for people to be unhappy, someone will be, but that’s life.”

Still admitted though his team may play slightly differently at home to how they have away, but was in no doubt about his priorities, saying: “The first thing to do is to try and win. If you win, more people are happy than if you lose.

“Let’s look at every game as if we are going to try and win it. Will there be adjustments? I daresay there will be now and again, but let’s try and win.”

Coincidentally Still had just seen the Bulls play before taking the Luton job and is expecting a tough encounter as the season approaches its crescendo.

He added: “I expect them to be really tough. I expect it to be a really, really tight game and a game where our attacking play has to be a bit more in the forefront than maybe in the two away games.

“But they’ll be a tough opponents, because the league’s tough. I was very fortunate that I saw them play the other night myself, before I even thought of coming here.

“I went to watch them at Ebbsfleet so I’m fully aware of their team. We’ve had them watched also so we have another match report. We will be fully up to date with them.

“We’re coming to the time of the year where sometimes form goes out of the window as well, people are playing for something, maybe down the bottom or maybe at the top.

“So there’s no gimmes. They’re going to be really, really tough and we’ve got to be really, really tough and they’re going to be really competitive and we’ve got to be really competitive and hope that our attacking players can create something for us and we can score some goals.”