Luton chief determined to ensure Town's season doesn't just 'peter out'

Town boss Nathan Jones is determined to ensure that Luton's season doesn’t just ‘peter out’ during the final seven games of the campaign.

The Hatters have had an excellent second term in the Championship, as before the Easter period, they had chalked up 14 wins from 37 games to reach the 50-point mark with nine fixtures still remaining, to virtually assure survival.

Since then though, Luton have turned in two below par showings, losing 2-0 at Derby County on Good Friday and then defeated 2-1 by play-off chasing Barnsley on Easter Monday.

Jones spoke after the game about going back to basics after witnessing a 'laid back attitude' among some of his players, and when asked how the squad had reacted since ahead of tomorrow's trip to bottom side Wycombe Wanderers, he said: "Very good if training today is anything to go by.

“We have that, this is a great group and what we don’t want to do is let the season peter out, because we’ve got ourselves into a wonderful position.

“It is a wonderful position, we would prefer to be higher, I remember the motivation we had this time last year with seven games to go, what points total we eventually hauled, and we’d like to do that again as I don’t want to let this season peter out.

“I want to make sure we are hungry to win games, we’ve lost the last two coming out of the international break, we won two going into it, and I want to put that right as I don’t like losing football games.

“We haven’t been used to losing football games at this football club so I want to make sure we do get a reaction.

“We are all human so I do understand, but this group has been built on hunger, and that’s what I want to make sure remains.

“Whatever points total we get, I want us to be at it.

“The last two games I can’t say we haven’t been at it as the Barnsley game was a brutal game.

"Against Derby we did enough to get something from the game, it’s just the key moments, both teams were better than us and that’s what we’ve got to put right.

“If I go back to the end of last years as a gauge, we were better in the key moments than pretty much eight of the nine sides we played against, and that was a big thing for us staying up.

"Now I want us to have that from a different position because we’re not in the peril of last year, but I would like a similar return.

“They’re a good group and we’ve achieved a lot this year so far, but I just want to make sure that we’re on it for the last seven games.”

Jones has turned Luton into a far more difficult side to beat since taking over for his second spell in charge, and wants to see more of that against the Chairboys, who need to win for their own slim survival hopes.

He continued: "We’ve got to go back to basics regardless of who you play, as if you don't do the basics right you don't win games and you don't get footholds in games.

"That’s what we did last season, we did the basics really well, for eight games as we didn't do it against Reading (5-0 defeat), which is understandable.

"For eight games, we did the basics really, really well and we didn't get beaten in those eight games.

"That’s what we've got to get back to as at the minute, we win two, we lose two, we win one, we draw one, we win one, we lose one, we lose two, there’s no consistency and we’ve got to get back to doing the basics right."