No sympathy from Hatters’ boss for depleted Canaries

Nathan Jones is not treating a depleted Norwich City lightly in Saturday’s League Cup tie at Luton Town.

The Hatters’ chief believes Daniel Farke has the squad depth to cover a sizeable loss of internationals for the upcoming trip to Kenilworth Road, with Luton only set to be missing Tom Lockyer (Wales) and Simon Sluga (Croatia).

“They have not far off 40 or so professionals, who were not far off Premier League quality. They are a top Championship side. They will be fine,” he said. “They have a squad to handle this situation. They could have brought it forward by a week, but that affects your preparations. Neither club wanted to change it. It will be an extremely tough game. They are a fantastic side.

“It is a good test. It could have been a nicer start for us but we always tend to draw the higher ranks teams in this competition. When the Premier League clubs come in we tend to get a decent tie. This is a really good test. If this was the last pre-season friendly, then we would have wanted a Norwich or a Premier League-sized test.

“It’s a cup tie and we want to win the game. There is something on this game and we are treating it as such, albeit using it still as part of our pre-season preparations going into the league kick-off.”

Jones is back at Luton for a second spell after the Hatters staged a late season survival mission to stay in the Championship under namesake, Graeme Jones.

“We don’t want to be in the same position we were in,” he said, at his pre-match virtual press call. “We’ve had a year of learning at Championship level, we have had a year of succeeding in terms of, in all fairness to the last manager, the last 15 games, we really got to grips with Championship football and had excellent results. Pre my arrival and also after.

“There is belief in the squad and I said that we don’t want to be in the same position. We believe we are better prepared on every level, so we want to make sure that we achieve more.”