Hatters MAD Player of the Month: April

Howard: In defensive action at Burnley

For the team in general, April has seen mixed fortunes. We stayed unbeaten away from home, won our first away game since January and played very well against two top six teams. On the other hand, we were poor in front of goal throughout the month on too many occasions, we let in a last minute goal that denied us a win against promoted Sheffield United and were very lucky to escape with a point at Burnley. However, the inaugural Hatters MAD Player of the Month goes to a player who has exceeded all expectations this month, playing in an unfamiliar role in central defence for a lot of the month. The Player of the Month award goes to Steve Howard.

Stevo's month started off solidly but unspectacularly. He scored with a header from a superb Brkovic cross against Ipswich and performed reasonably well against W**f**d. He was then moved to centre-back for the Coventry home match. Although Luton lost 2-1, neither of the goals were his fault and Howie and young Leon Barnett put in superb performances. However, his absence up front meant that we badly missed his goals, and he was put up front too late in the game. He then moved back up front for the long trip to Plymouth, where he apparently had a good game (didn't go so can't judge) albeit without scoring. He returned to centre-back for the visit of promoted Sheffield United and once again formed a solid partnership with Barnett that succeeded in denying the front two any goalscoring chances.Ade Akinbiyi, who turned our defence inside out earlier on in the season with Burnley, did very little this time around, and Stevo also made Bruce Dyer look like a donkey, although Dyer makes Liam George and Peter Thompson look like Pele and Maradona. Another solid display in a poor performance at Burnley rounded off a very good month for the big striker/defender. Hopefully he'll stay up front next season though – we may need the goals.