Caretaker might give Hatters a tweak for Exeter trip

The former Pompey boss will lead Hatters for the first time after John Still left his position at Kenilworth Road yesterday.

Although there won’t be massive alterations with the same squad that faced Northampton Town available to him, Awford said: “I don’t think you’ve got time to make drastic changes in all honesty. You can’t come in and rip everything up, I don’t think you’ve got time to do that.

“If you had a pre-season, of course you might do things differently, but there might be the odd tweak.

“I’m a different person to John, we’ve all got our own spin and all got our own take on different things.

“There might be the odd different little bit, but to come in and make drastic changes, it would be very difficult at this point.

“There might be the odd tweak and we’ll prepare properly and professionally, get down there, get our feet up and go Saturday.”

A chance in manager can often lead to an upturn in results and after four straight defeats, Awford hopes that trend continues, saying: “Of course it does, you see that sometimes when a manager leaves and another person takes over, you get that little upward spin in form and hopefully that will be the case.

“We’ll be getting every ounce out of the players that we possibly can, so they’ve got to respond and go out there Saturday, and perform for the football club and the supporters and that’s what we’ll be encouraging them to do.”

Although Luton are struggling down in 17th place, they remain just seven points adrift of the play-offs and that’s what Awford is targeting.

He added: “We are where we are and where we deserve to be after 20-odd games.

“The league is starting to shape isn’t it now, I think every manager in the country says it, get to 10-15 games and it starts to take shape, we’re now at 20, so we deserve to be 17th.

“It’s not beyond the realms of possibility we can improve and climb the table and we want to do that as quickly as possible, starting at Exeter on Saturday.

“We’ve got good players here, a good squad, we’re not where we want to be at the moment, but I’ve got no doubt that this squad of players we’ve got, with the staff, can push on up the league.”