Hatters chief wants his side to re-establish themselves in the Championship and not waste their first half of the season

Luton boss Nathan Jones is determined for his side to re-establish themselves in the Championship and ensure their first half of the season is in no way wasted.

The Hatters’ strong start to the campaign saw Town sitting in 13th place after beating Bristol City 2-1 on December 29, just seven points away from the top six.

They then lost 2-0 to QPR and although recovered to defeat Bournemouth 1-0 on the road, have suffered two successive losses to Brentford and Blackburn since, making it three reverses from four.

Luton now enter a run of home games starting against Huddersfield this afternoon which sees them play four out of six at Kenilworth Road and seven from 11 in total.

Jones said: “It was a real test in January with the level of the teams we had, but when you look at it, we feel we haven’t got what we deserved.

“We feel that we’re in a real good place, you won’t get a tougher week or a tougher two weeks in theory as I keep saying than going Bournemouth away, Brentford away, Chelsea away, Blackburn away.

“Four teams there that are fluent, that are possession dominant that have quality all over, you can bring budgets into it, but it’s pure quality, good sides and I think we’ve given a real good account of ourselves for probably not enough return.

“Now we have to make sure that we take that and turn those into points, as we need points, we don’t just need performances now.

"We need to re-establish ourselves now where we are and get points, as we want that otherwise it would be a wasted first half of the season.”

Although the run of one win in four hasn’t altered Town's standing in the table significantly, still sitting in 13th position, and just nine points from the play-offs, it’s the other end where things are starting to get that bit tighter.

With the sides in the relegation zone, barring Wycombe Wanderers, all finding form, it means the gap to the bottom three, which had been in double figures, is now down to seven points.

It's in no way the sort of danger that Jones inherited when the manager took over following lockdown last term, as he added: "It would be nice to win the next six, we have given ourselves a good platform as I said and we’re not playing catch-up on any one or the only ones we’re playing catch-up on are the play-off six.

“That’s a little bit better than last year.

“What we have to do is make sure that we don’t lose any more ground on anyone above us, never mind those below.”