Luton boss insists there are no limits to what 'bang on track' Hatters can achieve this season

Luton boss Nathan Jones insists there are no limits to what the Hatters could achieve this season.

Going into the final eight games of the campaign, Town find themselves sitting third in the table, four points above seventh placed Middlesbrough.

However, they are also just six points behind big-spending Bournemouth in second, although the Cherries still have two matches in hand on them.

Since the turn of the year, the Hatters have picked up the most points in the second tier with 34 from 16 matches, two more than leaders Fulham and 14 better off than Bournemouth, although both sides have had less fixtures.

But rather than just be content on securing a top six berth that most fans could only have dreamt of back in August, Jones said: “What we’re saying is there is no line there, it’s unknown.

“We have to keep going now, if you reach a certain points total you are guaranteed to finish in a certain position and that’s all we can do.

“Let’s just see where we can go from there but we’re preparing for Millwall because that’s the next game and the most difficult one.

"Ironically it is one of the most difficult games we have left this season anyway.

“What we’re saying to the players is that we’re in exactly the position we believed we could be.

“We did certain things, certain statistics at the beginning of the season when we had a meeting in pre-season, that if we had this much goal difference, this many clean sheets, had this many points over a five-game block then we will end up here.

"If we do exactly the same as we did last year, we had seven points over every five game block and we finished top half.

"If that goes up to eight, it’s top ten, slightly more, then that’s where you finish.

“We’re bang on track, we’re not saying to them if you do this, this will happen, we’re on track.

"Change nothing, continue to do what we do and let’s see where it takes us.

“If we can continue that then it will be a fantastic end to the season.

"We have some tough games coming up but this is what we wanted to do, where we wanted to be and this is where we believe we could be.

"The proof now is in the pudding.”

One thing Jones won’t be changing is the mentality around his side though, as he understandably refuses to look at anything beyond tomorrow’s home clash with Millwall.

The boss continued: “It really is one game at a time.

"For us to achieve a points total that we set at the beginning of the season, we could be a little bit more coy but right now it’s one game at a time.

"As we know so much can happen and so much has happened to us week by week that you can’t plan, you can’t leave people out and you can’t pick teams.

"Every game is different, everyone is playing for something different, and that’s why the Championship is such a wonderful league."

Going into the international break, Town had been in some serious form, picking up eight wins from 11 second tier encounters, finishing off on a high by winning 3-1 at Hull City.

However, they were down to the bare bones defensively with Sonny Bradley, Kal Naismith, Reece Burke and Gabe Osho all missing, and although Jones didn't give too much away over the quartet's fitness, he sees similarities in the upcoming spell of games to when he returned manager in May 2020.

Then he picked up 16 points from the final eight matches to ensure the Hatters somehow stayed up, as he continued: "That’s why the break came at a good time as I think it’s going to be a real intense time.

"It reminds me a little bit of when we came back in after Covid, eight game shoot-out, obviously it was nine games then with different prizes, but equally as important."

Following a hectic and intense run of matches since January, with Town playing 19 games, they are now straight back into another gruelling month with seven matches in April as they host Millwall, Nottingham Forest and Blackpool, with trips to Peterborough, Huddersfield, Cardiff and Fulham.

Town then end up at home to Reading on the final day, but having such a packed month won’t be a shock to Jones or his squad, as he added: “I think we’ve just done in March pretty much the same, six, seven games and we were stretched, really stretched.

“We’ve had a decent March, a fantastic February, we had the best February of any team in the league, so we’re in good shape and then the rest gave them that.

"We know we have a squad where every single player can contribute as we’ve had to use the squad and players who we’ve brought in, we picked up six points out of six.

"So we know that it’s a group that’s right at it, and we know that we've got decent numbers.

"We’ve got quality, got strength in depth, and we’ve got now a bit of freshness ready for the run-in.”