Jones knows staying up is a 'tall order' but targets final day decider

Town boss Nathan Jones has admitted that staying up this term will be a ‘tall order’ but he hopes to take the Championship survival battle down to the final weekend.

The Hatters go into the final four games of the season five points adrift of safety, although that is realistically six with their woeful goal difference.

They travel to fellow strugglers Huddersfield Town this evening, before entertaining QPR on Tuesday night.

Luton then go to another team at the bottom, Hull City, next weekend, and also host Blackburn Rovers in their last game on Wednesday, July 22.

Jones wants to make sure they still have something to play for then, saying: “It is going to be a tall order, but you just need to win games.

“We’ve not been in bad form. Apart from the Reading result which is understandable and then if we’d just held on the other night (1-1 draw against Barnsley), we’d be in a really positive position, we really, really would.

“It’s just that goal probably tarnished a few things, but we’ve got to go again.

“We’ve got four massive games, what we want to do is make sure we’re in it on the final day and if we are then who know what can happen?

“It’s obviously been a tall order from the restart having to peg back seven points, but we’re well up for the fight and we’ve got a group here who are hungry, that want to stay in this division.

“It’s a difficult task. To get effectively seven points more than three other teams to stay in the division is difficult.

"To win three out of four, which you have to do to stay up is difficult regardless of where we are.

"Even Leeds and West Brom and Brentford, that's a tall order, especially in the Championship as that’s the difficulty of the league.

"But you have to take every game as it comes, you have to try and get some momentum and it can be nick a win, it can be fluency, whatever way, by hook or by crook you have to try and gets the points.”

Back-to-back wins would give Luton a terrific chance of staying in the second tier, but although Jones is desperate to pick up six points from six, he is only concentrating on tonight’s trip to the John Smith’s Stadium.

He continued: “That’s what you have to look at (two victories), but you can’t look at QPR, you have to look at Huddersfield.

“So what we’ve got to try and do is try and get to 44 points, then there’s plenty to play for, as there’s lots that could happen.

“You've just got to keep giving yourself an opportunity and if you can take it to the last game and we're right in the mix in the last game then you never know as there’s hunger in the group and that’s what we like about them.”

Jones was only installed as manager for the final nine games of the season following the club’s decision to part company with Graeme Jones.

He has taken six points from his opening five matches, and although would have liked to have longer at the helm to try and salvage the situation, knows there is no point worrying about what had gone on before.

He said: “It’s difficult, you can always wish, you wish you were here from the start of the season, but I can’t change history now.

“If we had slightly longer, or we weren't coming from behind as much, then in terms of form, we’ve not been in a bad place compared to other sides.

“So it’s ifs and buts, but we can’t change everything.“We have to concentrate on the job at hand, we have to pick up points in these next four games and we’ll be prepared to do so.”