Hatters boss welcomes relegation 'six-pointers' for Luton

Town chief glad to be going up against sides nearer the bottom
Hatters boss Nathan JonesHatters boss Nathan Jones
Hatters boss Nathan Jones

Luton boss Nathan Jones is relieved to be playing sides in and around the bottom half of the table during Town’s final six games of the Championship campaign.

Since the second tier resumed last month, the Hatters have come up against teams looking upwards, in promotion-chasing Preston and Swansea, plus table-toppers Leeds United.

They have done remarkably well to remain unbeaten in that time, stretching their undefeated run to six games since before the coronavirus pandemic and glean five points from the three contests.

Tomorrow, Town host a Reading outfit, who are 16th, just six points clear of the drop themselves, before entertaining second bottom Barnsley on Tuesday night.

Luton then have home games with mid-table QPR and Blackburn, while also travelling to struggling Huddersfield and Hull, but they are just the kind of opposition Jones wanted after Hatters found themselves four points adrift of safety due to Hull beating Middlesbrough in injury time on Thursday night.

He said: “If I’m honest, I would prefer to be playing sides in and around us as we’ve picked up results, but when you’re not playing sides in and around you, they pick up results as well, so that’s a little bit frustrating.

“We would rather play them and if you win those games, you know your rivals are not gaining points or pulling away from you, or staying away from you.

“For us, with the proximity of games with only nine games left and the points gap we had to get back, it really is a benefit to play those sides in and around you as they are effectively six pointers.”

Ahead of the resumption, not many would have given Town a chance of getting too much from their opening three games, but after the 1-1 draw with Preston, two superb away performances led to a win at Swansea and draw with Leeds.

As good as the restart has been, Jones knows it will count for nothing if they don't back that up with wins in the final six matches, as he continued: "They were massive games because, realistically, if we didn’t pick up points in those games we were pretty much dead and buried.

"So we’ve given ourselves a chance, they were big, big games, but these now, we have to pick up points.

"I wouldn’t necessarily say the pressure is any different, because we had to pick up points against wonderful opposition.

"Now, we’ve got a really tough opposition and you just don’t know what people’s motivations are, and so on, but all we can concentrate on is us."

Tuesday night's excellent 1-1 draw at Elland Road saw Luton reach 40 points, and in four of the last five campaigns, a tally of 42 would have been enough to ensure survival.

It could be that over 50 is needed this term with all of the bottom clubs hitting form, and on what tally he thinks is required, Jones added: "I don’t know, I’m not going to know that, but what we have is a realistic target that’s a very bold one, but it’s realistic, and that’s what we have to stick to.

"If we get there and it’s not enough, then it would have meant that all barring winning every single game which is very difficult to do at this level, then there’s not much more we could have done.

"What we can’t do is arrive at a points target and we feel we should have done more, so we can only do what we can do.

"We’ve got nine games to save our status, we started with a six, effectively seven points adrift, all we can do is keep chipping away at that and if right at the end it’s enough then brilliant, if it’s not then as long as we gave it absolutely everything, then we can do so with a clear conscience.

"We have a gameplan, game to game, we know what we need to do, and we are motivated to do that.

"Game to game, we evaluate and we’ve just got to make sure we keep cutting that gap to the safety line and, if we keep doing that, then we give ourselves a chance."