JONATHAN Smith has been challenged to rediscover his form at Luton Town and then play a major part in the second half of York City’s season.

The 26-year-old midfielder, brought back to Bootham Crescent for a second spell in the summer after earning a League Two championship winners’ medal with Swindon, has moved to Luton on loan until January, having failed to make City’s starting line-up for the last nine games.

But Minstermen chief Gary Mills is hoping to benefit from Smith’s temporary move to Kenilworth Road later in the campaign.

“He knows what he’s capable of and he can still play a major part in our season if he gets back to that,” Mills said.

“He’s on a two-year contract with us and there’s no way I’m saying he won’t come back in January and play in every game until the end of the season, but he just hasn’t been the player he knows he can be and I know he can be this season.

“Sometimes that happens and this has come about.

“They’ve been chasing him for two or three weeks and rang me again after Saturday’s match.

“I’ve had a good chat with him and he’s been frustrated being out of the team and he’s decided he would like to go there for a couple of months to play games.

“I couldn’t really turn around and tell him he couldn’t go there because he hasn’t been starting for us, or coming off the bench much either.”

Smith’s loan departure follows on from that of fellow midfielders Lee Bullock and Tom Platt to Gateshead and Harrogate Town respectively but Mills does not believe his options are now limited in that area of the pitch.

“It doesn’t leave me short,” Mills said following Smith’s transfer. “We’ve got Danny Kearns and Matty Blair was doing well in there.

“Michael Potts is also still here and Lanre (Oyebanjo) has played in midfield before as well.”

The City boss added that Potts remains on the transfer list but that the former Blackburn Rovers reserve could change that should he get a chance to impress in coming weeks.

Mills said: “He’s here as a professional footballer and sometimes things happen so we will have to see.

“I would like to think he’d look at it and, with another midfielder gone, hope that an opportunity might come along now.”