Hatters forward Carlton Morris is looking forward to making his third appearance at Wembley Stadium in the Championship play-off final this Saturday.
The 27-year-old has netted 20 goals this season for the Hatters, his best return of his career so far, and Morris explained his own transition period when he joined the club last summer.
“I’m delighted with my goal tally this season to be honest”, said Morris. “There’s definitely been times where I could have taken some chances but over the course of a season, you take some that you shouldn’t, so it balances itself out. The lads have done a fantastic job of finding me available in the right places.
“I’ve found home at a lot of places where I’ve been. I feel like the experience that I’ve gained over my career has been invaluable to me, I’ve been to a lot of places, moved a lot as a young pro. It’s really tough at the start, but it’s something that builds you, not just as a footballer but as a character and a person as well. I have loved it here and it does feel like home.
“One of my best friends Harry Cornick was here, so he took me under his wing like a lost little deer, I was just following him about. I was fortunate to have him to hold onto while I was here, he made me comfortable and that helped with the settling in process as well. I followed tight behind him and made sure not to get lost.”
Morris was extremely impressed with the recruitment at Kenilworth Road which has built the current Championship play-off finalists, which he has noticed more over the season.
“For me, it’s a lot down to characters. There’s a recruitment policy here which they stick by, they sign good players but they are good people first and that can be a bit underrated at times how far that can go having a group of good human beings together, because when times get tough we work for each other, no one’s going to dig each other out for the wrong reasons. When I look around, they are the kind of people I want to be applying my craft with.
“Pelly, Henri Lansbury, Eli, Locks. They aren’t big characters in the wrong ways, they are big characters in the perfect ways. When it comes to it, they’ll be there for you, they’ll be the first people out of the trenches, it’s just so important.”
On his own previous experiences at Wembley, Morris claimed it could not get much worse than his two visits with Shrewsbury Town in 2018.
“I played at Wembley twice with Shrewsbury, lost the first one in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final and then lost in the play-off final, unfortunately I done my cruciate ligament which was a double whammy. I joked earlier that it can’t really get much worse than that, so I have nothing to fear going into it, it’s just a way of turning quite a tough experience for me personally into quite a valuable one.
“The main thing I just say to the boys is just to enjoy all of it, enjoy the build-up, enjoy especially the day of the game because it all goes so fast and then it becomes a memory so quickly.”