Luton boss declares Town won't go 'mental' when attempting to compete in the Premier League

Luton boss Rob Edwards has declared the Hatters won’t go ‘mental’ when trying to compete in the Premier League after winning promotion via the Championship play-off final on Saturday.

The Hatters reached the top flight for the first time since the 1991-92 campaign at the weekend, after a thrilling 6-5 penalty shoot-out victory over Coventry City at Wembley.

It means they are guaranteed over £100m at the very minimum when taking their place at the top table next term, giving their coffers a massive boost, although around £10m of that will go on rebuilding the Bobbers Stand.

Despite Edwards wanting to be competitive, he knows Luton won’t overstretch financially to try and make that happen, as he said: “Our board won’t allow our club to ever be in the kind of position that we were in just over a decade ago, so we’re not going to go mental.

"What we’ll have to do is play to our strengths, which is what we’ve tried to keep doing since we’ve come in.

"Of course there’ll be some change and there’ll be some recruitment, of course.

"We want to be competitive and we realise that it’s going to be the biggest challenge ever, we get that.

"The best managers in the world are all in the Premier League, you’ve got the best players.

"We know how tough it is, but allow me to try and enjoy this night before answering that in more detail.

"I think we can enjoy next season as well.

"What it does do, securing promotion to the Premier League, it probably secures our club for a long, long time as we will be sensible with how we go forward with it.”

With Edwards planning solely on trying to reach the top flight in recent weeks and months, the recruitment arm of the club has been preparing for both scenarios.

Now it’s known that Town will be mixing it with the elite once more, the boss continued: “I think there's been a lot of work going on, Championship, Premier League.

"I’ve not really allowed myself to focus on the Premier League target, I’ve just focused on the Championship stuff and we had a good plan there.

"The recruitment team have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes on the Premier League stuff, so I’ll get up to speed quickly with that.

"We will have to act quite quickly, probably work started on the stand right now as we speak, so there’s work to be done.”

Finally, on what he felt when the final penalty was fired over the bar at Wembley, Edwards added: “A bit numb, I just made sure I went and shook Mark’s (Robins) hand, and his staff.

"I don’t want to be that guy who just starts running off and celebrating before I see the other manager.

"It does feel good, again it was mixed because of Locks (Tom Lockyer).

"I didn’t feel I could really go for it, maybe you’d have seen a different Rob celebrating, I couldn't quite do that.”