18 February 2024 , 08:00
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The beauty of Luton Town’s against the odds fight for Premier League survival rests in how manager Rob Edwards has built a cohesive squad made up of spare parts.
Andros Townsend was briefly out of the game before joining on a short-term contract that became a long-term deal. Ross Barkley has enjoyed a renaissance in central midfield after several years of drift.
Lower league battlers are scattered throughout a squad that has fought against all odds to engineer a route towards surviving in the top tier despite the gulf in resources.
Then there is Tahith Chong, who comes up against his former club Manchester United this afternoon. The Dutch winger signed for United’s Under-18s from Feyenoord in 2016 with high hopes and by the summer of 2018 he was heading on a pre-season tour with Jose Mourinho ’s first team.
Upon making his debut against Club America, a 30-minute appearance off the bench, Mourinho praised Chong for his “initiative”, a “beautiful action” when setting up a goal, alongside his "enthusiasm and confidence". But it was qualified praise because the Portuguese was also quick to point out flaws that have proven hard to fix..
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"Of course physically he has his limitations,” Mourinho said. “And when he has one more touch and he allows that body contact of course he loses it, but when he makes the ball move and attacks people one against one, he has quality. He's a good kid."
The good kid is now a 24-year-old man still battling to find his way. Things did not work out as planned at United, despite winning both the young and reserve player of the year award in consecutive seasons, and he was inconsistent during three loan spells at Werder Bremen, Club Brugge and Birmingham City before eventually joining the Blues permanently early last season.
There were flashes of his undoubted talent at St Andrew’s but the end product remained inconsistent with a team fighting for mid-table security.
Luton Town manager Rob Edwards is calling on Tahith Chong to prove he deserves a starting role. (PA Wire/PA Images)Yet Luton stumped up £4m to bring him to Kenilworth Road. When Chong arrived, he was thrust into the starting XI for the opening four games. But since then his role has been that of making an impact off the bench, the undisputed highlight his goal at home to Liverpool.
Edwards is challenging him to earn back a starting spot and is impressed by his attitude on the training pitch.
“I think T has been really effective in lots of games when he’s been coming on and there’s a bit more space,” the Hatters boss says. “We’ve wanted maybe that transitional threat, or we’ve wanted that bit more balance with the left foot on the left hand side.
“I thought he was very effective when he came on the other day and injected some pace, some quality in certain areas, so he’s certainly in the frame.
“He’s been pushing for starts for quite a long time, but it just shows the strength in those areas that we’ve got, that he’s not quite been able to get them. But he’s someone that trains full throttle every single day and he’s certainly pushing. He's affecting the games at the moment.”
Affecting this afternoon’s game would be some way to earning back a starting spot - and remind his former employers what could have been.
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