Brabin warns Luton fans to ignore Fleetwood striker Brodie

The 24-year-old forward striker has been public enemy number one at Kenilworth Road since the York City play-off encounter in 2010.

He was booed mercilessly on his last outing as a Crawley Town player, but scored the equalising goal as the Red Devils went on to win 2-1.

Fleetwood has been less than prolific for the Cod Army since joining on loan during the summer, with four league goals in 16 appearances, but Brabin didn’t want to give him any extra incentive to improve his tally.

He said: “I just want the fans rather than focus on him and make him feel important just to concentrate on our lads and give us the support we’ve had.

“I know I speak from experience as player when I played. If all the away fans hated me I used to get a bit of a buzz from that and I’d go to away grounds, they were all shouting whatever they were shouting, it would give me a bit of a lift and spur me on to play your hardest.

“The best advice for me to give and I know it will be hard for a lot of them is just ignore any individual from other teams and just concentrate our group and give them the support.

“If we’re going to be a top side we need to overcome these little things. There’s a lot of decent players in this league, who all want to raise their game against us, but we know if we perform to our maximum, we can win these games.”

Opponents Fleetwood are blessed with an embarrassment of riches upfront, as along with Brodie, they have the likes of Andy Mangan, Magno Vieira and top scorer Jamie Vardy.

The signing from Halifax has grabbed 10 league goals in 10 games and Brabin continued: “He was a player we knew about and I know Fleetwood paid a lot of money for him.

“He chose to go there and we’re delighted with the players we’ve brought in. We’re looking forward to the game and hopefully one of our big players can change the game.”

The Cod Army start the game four points ahead of Luton as they sit in second place in the Blue Square Bet Premier. Victory would start to open up quite a gap, so Brabin wants his title-chasing side to remain in touch.

He added: “There’s a points advantage with them at the moment and we’re also being in danger of playing catch up but at the moment we just want get some consistency, go on a little bit of a winning streak and build confidence from that.

“They’ve done well. It’s well documented what they’ve done this year and I’ve watched them a few times.

“We’ve had a lot of 5-1 wins this season and we haven’t been able to back it up with a few more wins, we’ve drawn one or had a few defeats as well.

“One of the key things you have to overcome is bad pitches, bad referees, opposition, it’s something we want to overcome.

“If we can give 100 per cent to the maximum of our ability, I’m sure we can overcome these things.”