Bloomfield gives 'biggest thank you' to Luton supporters as he feels belief amongst Town faithful is growing

Luton boss Matt Bloomfield offered up the ‘biggest thank you’ to the Hatters supporters inside Kenilworth Road on Saturday after they generated exactly the kind of atmosphere he had requested during their priceless 1-0 victory over Coventry City.

Prior to the contest, the Town chief had called for those attending to make sure the famous old stadium was ‘bouncing’ and they certainly did that. Buoyed by an early red card to Sky Blues defender Jay Dasilva, the majority of the near 12,000 found their voices for the duration of the contest, as despite the numbers being evened up midway through they second period when Liam Walsh was dismissed, a red card which has since been rescinded, they remained firmly behind their players.

It paid off quite dramatically as well, substitute Shandon Baptiste on hard to sidefoot in a 90th minute winner, albeit with a huge helping hand from City defender Luis Binks, to lift the roof off the place and give Town every chance of staying up this weekend. Asked about the noise created, Bloomfield said: “It was fantastic, I loved it, I absolutely loved being in the ground. From the minute we walked out for the warm-up, from the minute the game kicked off, just hearing our supporters in full voice, they could have got frustrated at times as it looked like maybe it wasn’t going to be our day, but they really stayed with us.

“So I just need to say the biggest thank you to them as they were incredible. It was absolutely amazing, I loved it, loved it, that was the Kenny in full voice. I turned round to Pilks (Kevin Pilkington, head of goalkeeping), obviously Pilks has been here longer than me and I just said, Pilks, this place is bouncing today, these guys will roar us on, so it was lovely to witness.”

With Town securing their third successive Championship victory for the first time since March 2023, it has led to genuine optimism surrounding the Hatters’ chances of staying up increasing in recent weeks, with Luton knowing a win at a West Bromwich Albion with nothing to play for on Saturday will definitely secure their second tier status for the 2025-26 campaign.

Although that confidence has been with Bloomfield and his players since being appointed, he is now pleased to see it catching on with those who pay their money and turn out at home and away to support the Hatters, as he continued: “The belief within the changing room and within the training ground has been there for a little while, and I think it took a while, totally understandably so, for that to try and seep out a little bit.

"We had to get results, we had to put on performances for people to see, to witness, to build that belief, as if not it was just words from me, empty words. I felt that after the game on Monday (against Bristol City), the crowd believed. We’ve had a couple of moments, Hull away I felt was a big moment that I could really feel the belief seeping onto the pitch from our crowd, Derby, here on Monday and again today (Saturday), I just felt like they believed in us which is lovely.”

With the unity between the players and supporters stronger than it ever has been this term, it saw Town score late on once more, as they have done against Cardiff City and Stoke City in a run of six wins from 11 games that has seen them go from relegation certainties to one of the favourites to stay up. Discussing the Hatters’ ability to dig deep now, Bloomfield added: “You never know how strong you are until you need to find out.

"It’s something I was told a while ago and that’s probably been fitting of the last three games. We had to find out how strong we were. Could we keep fighting in the tough moments? And the boys absolutely have. We’ve got a really tough game next week but we have to make sure we believe we can go and put on a similar performance that we have in the last three games.

“We’ve found a couple of late moments haven’t we recently. We’ve gone down away from home and found a win. We’ve had some tough moments here against Blackburn, that was an incredibly tough moment for us as we got beat and it felt like it was a chance missed, but we have to stick together as a group in those moments. You can’t do anything on your own, you have to club together and you have to really rely on those around you to get you through it.

"You have to build those bonds and those connections and you couldn’t have written the script today. It was a crazy day, but for us to find that winner, for the lads to keep going, for Shandon in particular to find it, for the lads to support Thomas (Kaminski) for all of that, it was an incredibly day for us. We just have to make sure we strike that balance between euphoria and elation, which obviously that threw up because it was so late, but we have to get ourselves back on the ground very, very quickly, because we’ve got another big task ahead of us next Saturday.”