Hatters boss pleased his call for Town's players to become 'fitter' is working

Hatters boss Matt Bloomfield’s desire for his side to become both ‘fitter’ and ‘more robust’ is starting to pay off after the Hatters scored their second last-minute goal in five matches when beating Coventry City 1-0 on Saturday

The Luton chief had been critical of his side’s fitness levels in late February, when they lost both Marvelous Nakamba and Shandon Baptiste to calf problems in the 2-0 loss at Watford, as once more, the club were struggling to get their best players on the field due to injuries. Although Jacob Brown, Alfie Doughty and Elijah Adebayo are all out for the season, Town’s selection difficulties have improved, Reece Burke, Teden Mengi, Nakamba and Baptiste all available to play a part in the battle to stay up.

With a better player availability, Bloomfield has seen his side’s second half performances improve greatly in recent weeks and months, as they were able to hit back and beat Cardiff City 2-1 thanks to goals after the break from Jordan Clark and January signing Thelo Aasgaard, plus drawing 1-1 with promoted Leeds United.

Milli Alli then netted in stoppage time to earn a point against Stoke City, before the last three games have seen excellent displays once the sides have swapped ends, Town digging in to beat Derby County 1-0, netting three times in the 3-1 win over Bristol City and then seeing Baptiste sidefoot home as the clocked ticked into 90 to see off the Sky Blues at the weekend.

A clearly impressed Bloomfield said: “Two games in a row now we’ve outrun our opposition and for the first time since I've been here we’ve done it twice. So we’re starting to get towards a fitter group that we need. There's been a lot of hard work getting the boys there, I think there’s more hard work to go absolutely, but we’re starting to build the fitness that we need to pick up results.”

Questioned just how he has been able to get his squad to turn things around in such a short space of time, the Luton manager continued: “It’s not been easy to do. When we don’t have a midweek game we changed the day off so we can work harder on a Wednesday than we would have done on a Thursday. We’ve gone from a Wednesday off to a Thursday, but I think it’s just the continuity and the consistency of our work.

"In the drills we feel we needed to get the intensity up. There’s still more to go, but for two games in a row we’ve run really well. Modern day football is a fitness game, an athletic game and we need to make sure we’re fit enough to do the work we need to do and we’ve been pleased with the way the group’s adapted.

"Also I think the finishers have come on and done really well recently. We had a spell where they weren’t having the impact we wanted, it was in different combinations, but recently, none more so than Shandon last Saturday, but Kal (Naismith) and Clicker (Jordan Clark), Burkey (Reece Burke) and Chongy (Tahith Chong) late on, so the group is getting stronger.

"Some of those boys that have missed three, four months of work in the middle of the season, they’re not going to come back from their injuries fully fit, or match fit. They were fully fit but not fit for purpose shall we say, not 90 minutes. That comes when you play matches so that takes time. Unfortunately none of us have a magic wand to get that time moving any quicker, so we had to be as patient as we could with a view and as we’ve seen recently they’re in a good spot.”

Meanwhile, it’s not just the running metrics that have improved, but also Town’s efforts on the ball, as they played excellently when defeating the Robins on home soil just under a fortnight ago and also gave another terrific performance for large parts when defeating Coventry City last time out, two teams who are in the shake-up for the play-offs this season.

On how the two aspects are combined, Bloomfield added: “To implement the way we want to play, we have to be fit. So that’s why we need to be fitter and sharper and the boys have been doing that excellently, but also then it allows our football to come out. There’s been so much hard work done out of possession to stop the goals against column, try to halt that a little bit, so we need to be fit enough that we still have the energy to play when we’re in possession. I think that’s taken slightly longer to start coming through because of the process we had to go down, that we believe is the right way to go.

"Some of the football we’ve played the last few weeks, I’m thinking second half at Stoke, I thought we were excellent. First half at Derby, the last couple of home games we’ve been very good and that’s why we have to keep our focus on that, on the performance in and out of possession. There’s going to be a real tough test at West Brom no doubt about that, so we have to be as good as we can be in and out of possession if we want to get a result.”