“Just hasn’t worked out unfortunately” – Luton Town fan pundit predicts bleak Hatters future for 2021 flop signing | OneFootball

This article is part of Football League World’s ‘Terrace Talk‘ series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

When Luton Town signed Carlos Mendes Gomes from Morecambe back in the summer of 2021, it represented an exciting punt of a lower league player that had the scope to improve further.

Unfortunately though, the Spaniard hasn’t had the best of times as a Hatters player in the last year-and-a-half.

Having scored 16 goals for Morecambe in all competitions the season prior, including the winning goal in the League Two play-off final, Luton brought him to Kenilworth Road for an undisclosed fee, with his price-tag thought to be around £500,000.

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He spent a lot of his debut campaign at Luton on the bench though, making just seven Championship appearances and he was an unused substitute in 23 matches with Nathan Jones not keen to utilise the attacker.

With Mendes Gomes not in then-manager Jones’ plans for 2022-23, he was loaned back to the North West with Fleetwood Town of League One, and from a multitude of positions, having played out wide, in the number 10 and as a striker, the 24-year-old has scored seven times in 25 appearances for the Cod Army.

His future at Luton though looks bleak according to FLW’s Hatters fan pundit Daniel Ashby, who thinks that the club will look to get rid of the forward when the summer arrives.

“It’s tricky – we spent quite a big fee on him a couple of summers ago and it just hasn’t worked,” Daniel said.

“It hasn’t helped that we’ve moved away from a 4-3-3 and we’re not playing with wingers anymore.

“My guess is he gets a chance in pre-season to prove himself under Edwards, but unless he can adapt as a wing-back or striker, I think we will cash in as it just hasn’t worked out unfortunately.”

The Verdict

Mendes Gomes was always going to be a risky transfer – he did have youth football pedigree in Spain with both Getafe and Atletico Madrid, but in terms of senior football, he had gone from a low level of non-league to the first team of Morecambe very quickly.

He eventually made the step up to the fourth tier of English football and scored regularly, but then the step up a further two levels is massive.

Quite clearly Mendes Gomes didn’t show enough in training for Nathan Jones to fancy him being a part of his squad a lot of the time, which is why he ended up at Fleetwood for the season, where to be fair he is showing that in League One he is a good player.

Whether the Cods could afford the fee Luton want this summer remains to be seen, but the fact that they have recently signed players such as Jack Marriott and Jayden Stockley suggests that there is a chance.

There may be other interest in Mendes Gomes though and a bidding war could be exactly what Luton crave – even if it means making a small loss on him from two years ago.