Bloomfield not setting a points target for Luton to ensure they finish outside the bottom three

Hatters boss Matt Bloomfield isn’t setting a specific points tally for his side to reach in order to give themselves the best chance of staying in the Championship this term

With 11 games of the campaign to go, the Hatters find themselves five points from safety, after Hull City joined Cardiff City on 36 points following a 2-0 victory over Plymouth Argyle last night. Town have 33 points left in which to play for, more than enough to secure their second tier status if they can build on ending their 12-match winless run when defeating Portsmouth on Saturday thanks to Jordan Clark’s 25th minute winner.

Speaking before the contest, asked if had a target in mind that he felt needed hitting, Bloomfield had said: “I’m not really one to put too much thought into that if I’m honest. I never did it when I’ve been competing at the top of the league and I’ve never done it when I’ve been competing at the bottom. It’s not something that I try to occupy my energy with as I think it’s a bit of a waste. It’s just about performing and getting ready to win the next game. If we do that then one win can become two, three, four and we can start getting the points on the board.

"That’s my only focus going. Quite what happens and what the number and what the need are at the end will be what it is. If you aim for something and fall short then you’re going to fall short, so it’s just about doing what you can every minute to be successful. The only place where my focus goes is to this team, this football club and making sure that we’re ready to go.”

When Bloomfield took the job at Kenilworth Road, he left a Wycombe Wanderers side who were flying at the top end of the table, to move to a club that hadn't tasted victory in five league and cup encounters. That was then extended to 13 with the boss going winless in his opening eight encounters until the weekend when they defeated their south coast opponents to claim a massively-needed success.

Asked if he had noticed a different feel around the place when joining a team struggling in the relegation zone as opposed to the promotion-chasing Chairboys outfit he departed, Bloomfield continued: "Some of those are tangible and some of those aren’t tangible. It’s probably important to say that confidence and belief isn’t always easy to just turn on and off.

"When you’re winning and you expect to win, you find a way to win a football match. We had that earlier in the season in my job where I was before at Wycombe Wanderers. We’ve walked into a place here where there are some fantastic footballers who haven’t been used to winning recently and we believe we can turn that around, 100 percent.

"It’s about doing the small things, the small disciplines each and every single day that build up into a performance. That doesn’t happen unless you do all the small things right, so it’s about continually doing those bits and if you do that, you get performances. We keep going after the disciplines that provide winning performances. Habits, every single day on the training ground, habits that go into a team performance. Can we do it before the end of the season? Absolutely. It’s not always easy to switch on and off as if so, management would be a different job to what it is.

“To really influence and implement ideas we have to have time to work on it, but we wanted more results and more points than what we have right now. It’s no excuse, we want more. We've been working hard for more and time with the boys is great, as we get to work and we have to keep training and keep improving.”

Having refreshed his squad during the January transfer window by making seven signings, including Thelo Aasgaard, Millenic Alli, Kal Naismith and Christ Makosso, Bloomfield felt it was a necessary requirement to give the Hatters the best chance of remaining in the Championship come May, as he added: “They’ve not lived the journey like we haven’t lived the journey as well.

"Players like Thelo and the other fresh faces we’ve brought in to complement the incredible seniors that we have here that have done the club proud for a number of years now, and it’s about giving them some fresh energy as the game’s always evolving. Those boys need to have fresh energy around them at the right time and we felt January was the right time for that with us being newly in the building. Some of those boys have been there, seen it, done it, and they expect to win themselves.”