Luton star delays honeymoon for Championship play-off clash against Huddersfield

The Hatters were in the Conference in 2014 but are now just three games away from reaching the Premier League for the first time.

Harry Cornick's bizarre winner against Reading at the weekend kept the club's top-flight dreams alive.

But play-off rivals Huddersfield present an enormous task, with Luton having failed to beat the Terriers in their last four meetings.

Luton vs Huddersfield: talkSPORT commentary

This Championship semi-final first leg will take place on Friday, May 13.

talkSPORT will have exclusive coverage of the game at Kenilworth Road which will kick off at 7:45pm.

Commentary will come from Jim Proudfoot and former Republic of Ireland striker David Connolly.

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Luton vs Huddersfield: Team news

Nathan Jones still has a list of absentees for this showdown with the likes of Luke Berry, Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu and Elijah Adebayo all out.

As for Huddersfield, boss Carlos Corberan has no such worries to contend with and has an almost fully fit squad to choose from.

Luton vs Huddersfield: What has been said?

Matt Ingram, who joined Luton on an emergency loan from Hull earlier this month, has had his deal extended to cover the play-offs.

The 28-year-old has now been forced to delay his honeymoon for the second time having originally been prevented by Covid travel restrictions last year.

"I had a honeymoon booked but that's had to be cancelled now as I was meant to go away on the 15th, but it was an opportunity I just couldn't turn down," he told the club website.

"Hopefully we get all the way to the play-off final and then we'll look to rebook after that, but my focus is very much on Friday, very much on the game, very much on football.

"The honeymoon has taken a back seat and that will get sorted out when it gets sorted out."

Luton vs Huddersfield: Match facts

No team scored more goals from corners in the regular Championship season than Huddersfield (14), with this accounting for a league-high 22% of their overall league goals this term.

Since his first competitive appearance in English football in the 2017-18 season, Luton's Elijah Adebayo has scored 49 goals in all competitions, while 13 of his 17 strikes for the Hatters this term have come at Kenilworth Road.

Third placed Brentford won the Championship play-offs last season - however, the team finishing third hasn't been promoted in consecutive campaigns since both the 2011 (Swansea) and 2012 finals (West Ham).

The team finishing in sixth place has gone on to reach the Championship play-off final in two of the last three seasons, as many as in the 13 previous campaigns. However, sixth place hasn't been promoted to the Premier League since Blackpool in 2010.

Since the introduction of the Football League play-offs, only Blackpool (6) have been promoted via this method more often than Huddersfield (4).

This is just Luton's third appearance in the Football League play-offs, with the Hatters losing in the semi-final both times - against Crewe in 1996-97 (third tier) and Blackpool in 2016-17 (fourth tier).

Huddersfield kept a clean sheet in both of their regular league meetings against Luton this season, drawing 0-0 away and winning 2-0 at home. The last time they kept three clean sheets against an opponent in a season was in 2010-11, doing so against both Carlisle United and Tranmere Rovers.

Luton Town are winless in their last four meetings with Huddersfield (D3 L1), losing 2-0 last time out.