Butterfield believes Luton can ‘stay out of trouble’ this season

Former Hatters midfielder Jacob Butterfield is convinced that Luton will be able to remain clear of relegation trouble next term.

The 30-year-old was part of the Town squad who stayed up on the final day of the last campaign, as they beat Blackburn Rovers 3-2 to secure their second tier status.

Although Butterfield was one of a number released by Town once the term was completed, he is confident that the club can enjoy a much better season this time round.

He said: “Absolutely, I think with the loan players going back and myself and Macca (Callum McManaman) leaving the club, they’ll have to recruit well in the summer to add to the squad.

“I’ll be interested to see how the team shapes up next season, if they are set up to play more possession football and dominate the games more or if they continue with the counter-attacking and the way we finished the season.

“But absolutely they can kick on and do better.

"If you look at some of the clubs that are in the league next season, no disrespect to anyone, but I think Luton will be confident they can stay out of trouble.”

Although Hatters will be led into the new campaign by Nathan Jones, who didn't offer Butterfield a new deal last month, the midfielder was impressed by the Town manager during their short period together.

He continued: “He was good, real good energy about him.

“I don’t know if that was because he’d been here before, it seemed pretty seamless and the lads obviously knew him, but it was the right appointment from the club absolutely to bring him back in.

“He had a tough job and he got the job done, so fair play to him, he did a great job coming back in.

“I was strange circumstances, not having the fans in the games, but he did good and sometimes as a player and a manager, going through all the things, whether you’re in the team or not, you think ‘I don’t agree with that.’

“But I must say a lot of stuff that he said, he hit the nail on the head.

"I agreed with a lot of things he said about the games and how we needed to approach them.”

The manner in which Luton stayed up was quite magnificent, as with just nine games to go, they were six points adrift of safety, seven if you include their goal difference.

With four of their last six at home, the Hatters fancied their chances, but in the end, it was their away form that saw them stay up, taking 10 points from a possible 12.

Butterfield admitted that the confidence was always there that they could beat the drop.

He added: “We looked at the nine fixtures that we had and we said the first three are pretty tough on paper and then the six remaining ones with four at home, playing three or four of the teams that were right in the relegation battle with us, we thought we had a great chance.

“Certainly if we came out of the first three games with a decent points tally, it would set us up to really go at the games.

“It actually played out slightly differently as we got five (points) out of the first three including that massive away win at Swansea which was great and that gave us that platform to go into six games where it didn’t work out that way.

"Our home form was not great, we definitely played better away, which was not what had happened in the rest of the season which was a bit strange.

“It didn’t play out the way we quite thought it would, but we certainly felt like we had a chance if we could start well.

“If you looked the fixtures, we should have done better at home, but ultimately we had the away wins which was enough to do us, before the win on the last game.

"It was strange because the crowd weren’t there and the games were thick and fast, but you never felt like any sort of pressure.

"I personally was always confident that we could stay up."

The fact that Luton were locked in a fight for survival wasn't something that Butterfield had anticipated happening when agreeing to join the club on a free transfer in the summer though, as he said: "When I signed for the club I didn’t anticipate a relegation battle.

"I know people looked from the outside and said, 'they were in League Two, two years ago and they've come a long way, is it going to be a step too far?'

"But after I signed for the club, trained and played a couple of games, I didn't feel like we'd be in a relegation battle at all.

"Obviously that's the way it planned out, but I was always confident personally that we'd do it.

"It's a good group, the lads that weren't playing all kept their heads down, trained hard every day, supporting the lads who were playing and I think that team spirit and that attitude around the cub helped massively."

Butterfield would have loved to have had a bigger role to play in the Great Escape, but knew that success for the club will always come first, adding: "I think the record for the team when I played was pretty good really overall when you look back at the starts that I had and the wins, I definitely felt like I contributed.

"I was pleased with the Swansea game (after lockdown), but that was the only game that I had at that period.

"If you’d have told me at the time I would have been really disappointed that I couldn’t get some more games after that, but it’s just the way it worked out at Luton for different reasons.

"The team stayed up which was the main thing, whichever way it happened, whichever players played, it’s all about the club staying up."