Jones sets Town a clear points target to stay in the Championship

Luton boss Nathan Jones has given his players a clear points target to hit if they want to have a realistic chance of avoiding relegation to League One this term.

The Hatters restart their Championship campaign on Saturday, after it was suspended for over three months due to the coronavirus pandemic, at home to Preston North End as they find themselves on 35 points, six adrift from safety, seven if you include their inferior goal difference, with just nine matches to go.

Aside from Preston, the Hatters have home games with Reading, Barnsley, QPR and Blackburn, while also facing trips to Swansea, Leeds, Huddersfield and Hull.

Over the last five seasons, the team finishing fourth bottom in the second tier have had an average of just over 46 points, although that looks like it will be much greater this season, with Hull in 21st on 41, as are Wigan and Middlesbrough, while fellow relegation rivals Huddersfield and Stoke City, both on 42.

With 27 points to play for, speaking to the Sky Sports News' Football Show, Jones said: “The big thing is I came into a group that I knew and an environment that I knew.

“I probably wouldn't have done it for other clubs, or I would have taken a different route, but I believe we can do it, I believe we've got a squad here that can get a certain number of results.

“Now if we get those results, it gives us a wonderful chance of staying up.

“We can’t affect and we're not going to worry about anyone else.

"We will have a target of getting to a certain level of points and that's a realistic target.

"If we get there, it gives us an opportunity.

“For me, it's all about the group and the environment I have here, as I know that, it's not too different in terms of the people and personnel from when I left.

"If we win nine games, but so do all of the bottom seven for example, we won't stay up.

"You have to take each game as it comes, yes we've done the work now so hopefully we can hit the ground running.

"But I would imagine, so have Alex Neil (Preston manager), Coops (Steve Cooper) at Swansea, Marcelo (Bielsa, Leeds boss) will have done exactly the same.

"All we can do is prepare as well as we know how to and we will take each game as it comes.

"If we do not get to the points target that we have, it will be very difficult to stay up, but if we do, it gives us a real, real good chance."

Under previous boss Graeme Jones, Luton were in good form going into the season being suspended, with three wins and two draws from their final six games, picking up 11 points from a possible 18 on offer.

Jones hopes they can carry on that kind of momentum from the opening whistle, as he said: "They were in good form leading in, so I hope that is a good thing for us leading forward in terms of getting results, as if we weren't then we'd probably already be dead and buried.

"So I do believe in the group, the work that we do, that I do personally, that my staff do, and I believe if everything comes together, then we'll give ourselves a real good chance."

Going into the run-in, all three teams who came up last term, Luton, Barnsley and Charlton are in the most severe danger of relegation, occupying the bottom three places.

On whether they have found the move into the Championship too difficult to cope with, Jones, who was in charge of Stoke City until November, continued: "It's wrong for me to comment on three teams that I haven't had anything to do with in the season, but it is definitely a step up, in quality, athleticism, it's a relentless league.

"There's some real good teams, ex-Premier League teams, so there definitely is a step up in quality.

"We recruited a certain type, that we believed was going to be adaptable to the Championship, we would have obviously needed to add a little bit more quality as well, but we felt there's a squad here that's capable of staying up.

"That's going to be tough from this position, but we're going to give it a go."

Jones also believes that it will come down to who can adapt best to life in the new normal of the Championship, which will affect every part of getting his squad ready for the last nine fixtures.

He added: "I'm very methodical and OCD with my planning, but at the minute you have to take every game as it comes, especially in this environment.

"As one, you've had minimal time to prepare a group for Championship football, which is as intense football as you likely to have in the world.

"Secondly, there are a cluster of games coming up where, with travel arrangements that are totally different from before, we haven’t got the luxury here of being able to fly to games, but hotels, we don't know yet, what kind of preparation we can have with hotels.

"Thirdly we get tested twice a week, any positive test can have an impact on squads, so I do 12 hours, 13 hours a day, I practically live at the training ground.

"We will plan for every single game to the best of our ability, but were going to have to be adaptable, as I think every other team are going to be."