Edwards convinced Luton's future remains bright despite impending relegation

Town boss Rob Edwards is convinced Luton remain a club that are very much ‘on the up’ despite being unable to secure a second season of Premier League football this term.

The Hatters will bow out of the top flight following the full time whistle against Fulham on Sunday, as there is little realistic chance of them beating the Cottagers and overturning the 12-goal swing in the process that fourth bottom Nottingham Forest, who are three points clear and on the road at Burnley, have over them.

With Edwards having led Town into the promised land by beating Coventry City in the play-off final just under 12 months ago, asked what he thinks lies in store for him and Luton ahead of a return to the second tier, he said: “I hope I’m kept on and I’ve got a contract for another couple of years, so I don’t envisage losing my job. I think we’ve done a very, very good job together and we will come back stronger. This club is on the up, we said that when we got promoted.

"We knew the scale of this challenge, we had to grow and evolve and change quicker than anyone else, with less time to do it. We were coming from a little bit further behind than some of the others, in terms of how quick the club has moved forward on the grass, so we’re building the right way. I love it here and I think they enjoy having me as well.”

Edwards will be starting his fourth full season as a manager when the 2024-25 campaign swings around, having had stints of varying success at Forest Green Rovers and Watford, experiencing every emotion possible during that time. This term, he saw Town’s efforts to stay up severely hampered by some awful luck with injuries just as they were getting a head of steam, as following their 4-4 draw at Newcastle United, they were without the key trio of Elijah Adebayo, Sambi Lokonga and Chiedozie Ogbene, while Gabe Osho was also absent, Marvelous Nakamba, Jacob Brown and Amari’i Bell ruled out for the season too.

The Town chief didn’t want to use that as a reason for their relegation though, continuing: “I always try to think positive, it’s my third year in management, there’s been a lot that’s gone on in those three years. We’ve won a league title, we’ve been sacked, we won promotion through the play-offs and now relegation, it’s not dull.

"We’ve thrown everything at it, we’ve just come up short in the end. It’s not anyone’s fault, ultimately we had a difficult period for probably eight to ten weeks where we were missing a lot of people and the squad was thin and that was a huge challenge for us. I’m not making excuses, a number of teams have had that this year, it was difficult for us and in the end this league has just been a bit too much.”

Reflecting on the club’s first season of mixing it with the elite since the early 1990s, and also his own maiden campaign managing against some of the best in world football, Edwards added: “As the season’s progressed and gone on, we’ve learnt a lot and grown into the league. We’ve had to learn quickly but then we’ve shown a lot of quality, we’ve shown that we can compete with the best. Yes we’ve lost games, but we knew we were going to do that. I think we’ve lost in style at times and lost in a way that we're proud of.

"Sometimes I can sleep better after a four-three loss against Arsenal than against Forest when we drew two-two, when there were things I wasn’t happy with but we took a point from the game whereas we didn’t against an Arsenal, or a Villa, or Chelsea at home when the performance was great. The players have shown we can compete. When we’re at our best we can compete with everyone, we’ve done that, and that’s what makes me proud. Seeing the improvement in a lot of players this year, the belief, the confidence, the growth in the team has been great.”