Hatters CEO declares Imps defeat must be Luton's 'turning point' in bid for promotion
Sweet felt Lincoln loss didn’t reflect the Hatters
Hatters chief executive Gary Sweet has declared that last weekend’s 3-1 defeat at Lincoln City needs to be seen as a ‘turning point’ in the club’s season with promotion back to the Championship still very much the target.
Following a decent start to the campaign, Town winning four out of their first six games, they were on the verge of setting a club record for the least amount of goals conceded at the start of a Football League campaign, before losing 3-2 at home to Plymouth Argyle, having had around 50 minutes against 10 men. They then headed to the Imps seven days ago, where they produced a dreadful display, going down to a 3-1 defeat that made it three losses in four league fixtures.
It led to manager Matt Bloomfield and his players coming in for plenty of criticism from supporters at the LNER Stadium, with that continuing on social media for the majority of the week too. With Town having been plying their trade in the Premier League two years ago, then sitting in 11th in League One represents a huge fall from grace, as Sweet insists it now has to start turning again, with anything less than a top six place not good enough.
Speaking to BBC Three Counties Radio, he said: “We really hurt, this hurts, it really hurts when we’re in this downward spiral, but no more. I actually remember being in the Conference, I think it was Hyde at home when we lost, we played Gateshead away, and we said we’re not doing this again. So we just need to, whatever it takes, we need to point in the right direction. I think there’s an awful lot behind the scenes that’s happening to suggest that we can do that, that supporters won’t see.
"So we can do that, but we see this now as being effectively mid-table League One, this is where we are, we now need to point in the right direction, so this is the turning point, it’s got to be. It’s (Lincoln loss) such a disappointment that I see that and it didn’t really reflect me, Matt, any of us, the town, or anything. I just want to go to a game and feel proud, even if we lose, I want to feel proud of the way we’ve played, or at least we’ve given it a go and I’m not saying here that the players didn’t give it a go, they just didn’t know how to on Saturday for some reason.
"It happens occasionally in football, it happens to the best teams sometimes in football, but we just need to make sure it’s a one-off. This is our lowest ebb, and we need now to start turning this corner and pointing in the right direction. I’m not talking about Saturday, I’m talking about this phase in the season. We need to do this, performances do need to change, I don't want to apply pressure on us to win the next three games, as we are going to lose more games in this league, we’re going to, we have to accept that.
"Let’s think about the hope of getting up rather than the expectation and I think that’s where we really want to drive things right now. We’ve got promotion to look forward to, we have to look forward to promotion, this is the absolute aim, the absolute target and anything below that play-off zone is unacceptable to us. So that’s something we can look forward to. I’m actually really quite content with the people that we’ve got here and the direction we’re taking the football club. There’s nothing wrong here, we are going in the right direction.”
Despite the poor display from the weekend, and the manner in which Town have begun their efforts in ensuring their stay in the third tier is a short one, Sweet didn’t feel that it was due to a lack of fight and grit within the club, as he added: “I think if you saw the performance on Saturday you would believe that absolutely, I did, but no, it’s there underlying it really, really is.
"I think everybody we’ve brought in are strong characters, player-wise and coaching staff, they get it, it just takes that time to gel and unify and I think once we get going that will come back. It’s got to come out in the manner of performances. We need to play quick front-footed football, attacking flair football, not necessarily tiki-taka through the middle or anything, but we’ve got to be dynamic in the way we play.
"There’s never a time where I want to see any of our players duck out of a tackle or not run, or appear like they don’t care. I know every single one of those players really do care and they’re good people. We brought in characters that actually will care and will unite that spirit again so I’m confident with this group that we’ll get there.”