“Don’t expect much from Nakamba”

Innocent Kurira

WARRIORS midfielder Marvelous Nakamba made his much anticipated return to action when he featured in England Luton Town’s Carabao Cup exit at the hands of QPR on Tuesday.

The match had ended 1-1 in regulation time before QPR won 4-1 on penalties. Nakamba played 45 minutes of the game where he had a success pass rate of 93.3% from the 30 passes he attempted.

It has been a long journey to recovery for Nakamba who will be praying to regain full fitness soon. Despite the excitement surrounding his return to action, Luton boss Rob Edwards has warned against expecting too much from the midfielder as he has a long way to go to regain full fitness.

“There are bits there where he needs work, he’s still not fit yet, that’s understandable, he’s been out for so long. Some of the press he was just off and I don’t think people should expect too much too soon. We’ll see how his knee reacts now to this, so don’t have people thinking that’s it, he’s in for Friday now, that will be too soon. We’ve got to manage him in the right way, but it was nice to have him out there of course.”

The 30-year-old had featured 13 times in the top flight for Town last term before suffering a serious knee injury during training which meant he didn’t play again for the Hatters after the 2-1 home defeat to Manchester City on December 10.

Luton Town went on to get relegated from the Premier League and will now be hoping to make a quick return to the Premier League with Nakamba playing a central role in that bid.

After finally getting in a position where he could feature again, Edwards confirming he could be involved against the QPR’s, it was a huge boost for the 1,000 travelling fans to see him named in the starting line-up at Loftus Road.

Nakamba was last part of the Warriors’ squad in Rwanda last November for the Group C World Cup qualifiers where they drew with the East African country and Nigeria.
-@innocentskizoe