UPDATED: Hatters kids must be ready to be involved in Town’s FA Cup tie at Cambridge

With Luton’s loan men unavailable to play in Saturday’s 1pm kick-off the Town chief revealed that a number of the club’s burgeoning youngsters could form part of the squad at the weekend following Wednesday night’s 3-1 FA Youth Cup fourth round qualifying victory over near-neighbours Barton Rovers at Kenilworth Road.

On whether any of them might feature, Buckle, speaking at today’s press conference, said: “Yeah maybe. The youth have always got to be ready. Quite often I will walk across and talk with the young lads and tell them, make sure you’re ready.

“You never know when the opportunity is going to come. If it happens it won’t be the first time a youngster’s got on in an FA Cup game.

“So who knows. I won’t give my hand away, of course I can’t do that. But the youth team do need to be ready.”

On-loan Guiseley defender Simon Ainge is unable to play having played in a previous round, while Connor Essam and Yaser Kasim are not being allowed to play by their parent clubs.

The centre of defence will therefore see the most change and the competition is on to see who will partner the returning Janos Koavs there.

Buckle urged him to take his chance, saying: “It is quite a shake-up, but then Jan’s had a good rest now. He’s looked bright, he’s had his rest and it’s down to him to come and take his opportunity now.

“When a door closes for one or two then it opens for others and I know as a former player you’ve got to take your opportunity when you get it.

“We can’t afford to rest anyone really, as rule I’m not really a lover of that to be honest, I don’t think that works in my opinion.

“We want to keep up the momentum, we want to keep the players in a good place, so I don’t subscribe to that and even if I wanted to we are quite low on numbers and because of the players who are not able to play because of being on loan the team will have to change.

“So it’s enforced but everyone’s ready. We’ve had a development game this week. Everybody’s up and at it again in training today which is excellent.”

Both Alex Lacey and Dean Beckwith were forced off in Tuesday’s development game at Charlton.

On whether either of them may partner the popular Hungarian, the Luton chief said: “Possibly but then both have struggled a little bit. Dean came off in the development game, he’s still feeling his groin.

“Although he trained today I’ve got to be careful of that. The type of person Dean Beckwith is he’s desperate to play.

“But it’s a slight worry he came off feeling the groin so I’ve got to look at that tomorrow.

“Lacey’s been ill as well, he’s been really poorly, so he’s not had hardly any football of late so we are pushed where that’s concerned.

“Others have had to slot in before and that’s the name of the game.”

Top scorer Stuart Fleetwood is available once again though after serving his one-match ban for his sending off against Brtaintree and Buckle was glad to welcome him back into the fold.

“It suits us in many ways because the best form of defence for me is attack anyway,” said Buckle.

“There’s one thing you can’t accuse us of this season and that’s not going for it.

“We’ve gone for it in every game. We’ve taken centre-halves off, got in the lead and then bringing them back on again because we try and win every game and it will be no different Saturday.

“We will go there and we will take a good following.

“We want to impress the fans, we want to be value for money and I think the boys have done terrifically well this season.”

Andre Gray is also champing at the bit to be involved after England C’s game in Albania on Tuesday night was cancelled because of a deluge.

He was one of four Town men due to be involved, but is the only one who can play at the weekend.

Buckle said: “They got a little of our weather didn’t they!

“They’ll be OK. Andre’s come back OK. Obviously we’ve got Adam (Watkins) out on loan.