Hatters boss Nathan Jones spoke to lutontown.co.uk after bringing in his first new face of the summer today as Sonny Bradley agreed to join when his Plymouth Argyle contract ends on June 30.
The former Hull City, Aldershot, Portsmouth and Crawley defender has agreed a three-year contract at Kenilworth Road, and long-time admirer Jones told lutontown.co.uk: “Sonny is a player that we like and we thought he would definitely improve our squad.
“He is naturally left-footed, a real good size, an excellent defender and he gets goals from set plays, so he’s someone we have liked and have wanted to bring to Luton for a while.
“With us losing Scott Cuthbert and Johnny Mullins, it’s important that we have that experience and a leader around the place again, so we’ve added another real quality one to strengthen the squad. We’re delighted to have him here.
“He’s one that knows the level, he’s been promoted from League Two and did very well last year with Plymouth, and he comes in to improve the squad. We’ve lost two centre-halves who were big leaders for us, on and off the pitch, so we’ve added one to fill the void left by them.”
Bradley was an important figure in both Plymouth’s promotion from League Two in 2016-17, and their surge towards the play-offs – eventually finishing seventh and narrowly missing out – after a slow start to their League One campaign last term.
“Plymouth had a bad start because of a lot of circumstances, but they did very well last year and Sonny was a big part of that – he was a big player for them,” said Jones, who has already signed Andrew Shinnie on a permanent deal after his season-long loan from Birmingham.
“Every window we improve our squad, we feel, and this is the second permanent signing. We’ve re-signed ones we already had here, and in terms of Shinnie, who’s now come full-time to us. Sonny is the second one to come full-time to us and we are delighted to have secured his services.”
After returning from holiday at the weekend and just over a fortnight to go until the players return for pre-season, Jones says he is happy with where his squad is at the moment.
He said: “We are delighted. It’s nowhere near as hectic a window as last year, and people may think ‘What are they doing?’ and are getting impatient. Last summer we signed 11 players, but we had to bring all these players in. Now we already have them in the building. Our squad is phenomenal.
“It’s only a few real bits of quality that we need to add to make us a much better squad, and that’s what we are doing. When you are doing that and are looking for the best ones possible, sometimes it takes a little bit more time, but we are in a wonderful position.
“We are making inroads. We are speaking to players that we’d like to bring here, and hopefully we can get the ones that we want.”
