Hatters midfielder believes Luton can push for the Premier League after World Cup break despite Jones' exit from Kenilworth Road

Town midfielder Jordan Clark believes the Hatters can return from their break for the World Cup with the ambition of going one better than last season and reach the Premier League, despite the exit of manager Nathan Jones last week.

The 29-year-old was a big part of the Luton squad who reached the play-off semi-finals last term, playing every minute of the 2-1 aggregate defeat to Huddersfield Town.

With the Championship now breaking for a month due to the tournament in Qatar, Town find themselves well placed to do something similar this term, as they sit in 10th place, just one point away from the play-offs.

When they do return, they will be led by a new manager, as Jones departed for the Saints, taking with him assistant Chris Cohen and first team coach Alan Sheehan, with former Watford and Forest Green Rovers chief Rob Edwards heavily tipped to become his replacement.

Clark said: “They’ve left and gone on to bigger things in the Premier League, but we’re still here and we want to fight for promotion ourselves.

“We can’t drop our heads and get down about it as we’ve got a job to do at the end of the day.

"We want to get this club where we think it needs to be and where we want to be, so we’ve just got to keep going, keep working hard every day, and come back hard in full fitness, get some of the injuries back, so we’ll look forward to it.

“We want to progress every season with the club and last season we made the play-off semi-final, so we’d love to go one better this season and get promoted.

“It’s such a tight league, we’ve had a bit of an inconsistent week, but we’re still a point off the play-offs.

“If we can get a little run going at the back end of the season, find a bit of consistency, who knows where we’ll end up.

“We’ve got to refresh over the break, we’ll come back in a positive mood, there'll be a new manager and we’ll look forward to that.”

The time off will be something of a blessing to the Hatters squad, who have had to cram 21 games into a hectic opening few months of the season, including seven midweek matches.

The former Accrington winger is one of a number who will benefit from the rest, having appeared in 20 out of 21 fixtures so far, starting 19 of them.

Team-mate James Bree hasn’t missed a single minute, while Allan Campbell has started every match after a summer away with the Scotland national team, with duo Ethan Horvath and Amari’i Bell missing just one contest apiece.

Clark continued: “It’s great to be playing but eventually it catches up on you.

"You get little niggles and stuff, but you play through it and I’m fortunate enough to be playing pretty much every game.

"I think a lot of people will be ready for the break and it will do them the world of good, hopefully everyone comes back in one piece.

“We’ll try and get a bit of sun, we’ve got 10 days off so we’ll enjoy that and then get back to working hard again in the mini pre-season again."

The mid-season break, which is the first one that Town’s squad will have experienced, will give them a chance to get some of their injured players back too, with Cauley Woodrow, Reece Burke, Henri Lansbury, Fred Onyedinma, Dan Potts and Sonny Bradley all missing recently.

Clark, who found himself shunted all over the pitch in recent weeks, added: “It will be weird won’t it, but for the injured lads it’s probably come at a good time, get some rest and then get a mini pre-season under your belt again, so we can go again second half of the season.

“It’ll good to get some lads back as we’ve been a bit threadbare in some places and playing players out of position, especially myself playing right back, right wingback.

"So with a full squad I’m sure we’ll do positive things in the second half of the season as we’re in a good place.”