Luton boss Jones admits it was a 'tricky' decision to send Kioso on loan to Cobblers

Luton Town manager Nathan Jones admitted he was close to keeping Peter Kioso at the club but eventually made the 'tricky' decision to let him leave on loan to the Cobblers.

Kioso thrived whilst on loan with League Two side Bolton Wanderers during the first half of the season but, following a spate of injuries and absentees, Luton recalled him at the start of January.

Bolton had been keen to re-sign the 21-year-old for the rest of the campaign when Jones indicated he would be allowed to leave again, but the young defender instead joined the Cobblers earlier this week.

“It’s a tricky one, really, because I didn’t really want him to go," Jones told the Luton News. "But he felt we have a lot of people that can cover that area.

"We have James Bree, Matty Pearson, Martin Cranie and Jordan Clark who can play in that area. So it was a decision that we needed to say, really, in June, where will Peter Kioso be?

“We want him to be really close to our first-team and, by doing that, is it better to keep him around our environment, or get him tested at a different level. We came to the decision of testing him at a different level.

“He had a very good loan at Bolton and we had no problem with him staying at Bolton, but I wanted to get him back in the fold for a few weeks. He came back, we spoke, made a decision and hopefully he’ll go and do really well at Northampton.”

Asked if he sees Kioso being a first-team player for Luton in the future, Jones added: "Yes, we do. He has to adapt to the level. He has to get there, but we’ll never know until we actually play him.

"But we have people who are ahead of him that are more used to Championship football and so on, so that’s why he needs the game time elsewhere.”