Blackwell will hopefully rest a few players for tonight's match with
Northampton. Dave Edwards will definitely be out of the match, as he is on Wales U-21 duty, and players such as Furlong, Perry and Currie. It is a good chance for him to play players such as Morgan, Emanuel and BRKOVIC (please) to try them out and give them some match practice, because none of them have really played this season. Kevin Blackwell has already said that he is in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy to win it, so that means we'll either go out in the semi-finals or we'll go out tonight. Hopefully he won't play players such as Bell, that we will miss if any injuries are picked up tonight.
My view of tonight's game is that if we lose, then the competition isn't worth bothering with anyway, and if we win, the competition still isn't really worth too much effort, and I think a lot of Luton fans would agree with me there. The competition isn't exactly useless, because it is a good chance for the reserve team and youth team players to have experience of playing with the first-team against other sort of first-team players from clubs of a similar standard. There have also been some (but not many) good moments in this trophy for a Luton fan. Enoch Showunmi scored his first goal in an LDV Vans match against Rushden & Diamonds, and who can forget Ahmet Brkovic's six-minute hat-trick in this competition against a team I can't remember. There was also that memorable match about three seasons ago, when someone got sent off and we lost to someone's reserve team.
However, Luton's record in this competition isn't exactly memorable. I can't remember us ever getting to an important part of this competition i.e. the Regional Final or the Final. Until we get there this season or in any future season, I'll continue not to care about the outcome of matches in this competition, and from the low attendance at Kenilworth Road tonight, most Luton fans will agree with me. Good luck to the team tonight, I hope that one of the youngsters really impresses Blackwell, but I'll start to really care about whether we win or lose if we manage to get to the Semi-Finals.