Luton chief Edwards urges Hatters players to 'enjoy' Championship run-in

Town boss Rob Edwards wants his players to enjoy the final stages of the season and the pressures that come with an upcoming play-off campaign where Luton will try and reach the Premier League.

The Hatters have been in stunning form since the 40-year-old took over back in November, winning 13 out of 21 league matches to lift themselves from 10th to third in table.

Although automatic promotion now appears a step too far following second place Sheffield United’s recent form and 1-0 victory over Bristol City last night, Town are one point away from sealing a second successive top six finish, which in itself is a fantastic achievement.

It would then put them into the end season lottery to attain top flight status, a two-legged semi-final, the winners going to Wembley on May 27, but despite talk of the strains that will come trying to achieve promotion in such a manner, Edwards said: “Pressure does things to teams now at this stage of the season, and I think what we’ve done really well is we’ve just carried on doing what we do really well.

"It doesn’t look like anything’s affected us or we feel anything different, which I love.

"So we just want to try and keep playing our way and everyone that we come up against now, most teams are playing for something.

"Let’s try and enjoy the occasions.

"We are in a position right now where we have to try and enjoy this as well.

"Four games to go, we are at the right end of the league and it’s not often that you get this in your career.

"I’ve been really lucky to have a couple of them as a player and I’ve been involved in a couple of promotions as a player, and then one as a manager.

"They are amazing times being in and around that top end, so you’ve got to try and enjoy it as well.”

The Hatters have put together a 10-game unbeaten run recently, with seven victories and three draws, which catapulted them into contention for a top two berth.

It’s a sequence of results that isn’t that unusual for Edwards following his year in charge of Forest Green Rovers last term, when he lead the club to the League Two title, as after being asked if he had ever been involved with form like Luton’s he continued: “A few times, it doesn’t happen often in your career, but probably a couple of times in my playing career and I lucky enough last year to be part of a team that went 19 games unbeaten and we won the league in the end.

“So I’ve experienced it a few times before, but it is something that when you have it, you’ve got to try and keep it and you’ve got to enjoy it as well.”

On what is needed to achieve such consistency, he said: “You are relentless, you know what gets you success like we do here.

"A lot of that involves doing the basics right, valuing the side of the game that people don’t necessarily see, but also being organised and having a plan for every game as well.

"There’s always little tweaks, but sticking to what we do, we try to base things off what we do and our strengths, how we play.

"Of course we’ll look at the opposition, try and be organised and look to try and stop their strengths as well.

"That’s how most people would do it, but at the moment we’re in a good groove, in a good moment and we want to try and keep that going.”

Meanwhile, Luton now face another side at the wrong end of the table this evening when they head to struggling Reading, the Royals side having earned a point after a goalless draw with champions-elect Burnley on Saturday.

Having gone up against Blackpool and Rotherham in their last two matches, Edwards knows all about what is needed to beat a team with Championship survival their sole focus, as he added: “It just shows the strength of the Championship.

"We talked about Rotherham on the weekend – they’d just drawn with Norwich and beaten West Brom, so it’s very similar with this game now.

"The performance on the weekend against Burnley was very good, and Burnley have been the outstanding team in the league, haven’t they?

"They’ve been the best team by a mile.

"We’ve got to respect that, we’ve got to be our usual selves, we’ve got to work very, very hard to give ourselves a base in the game.

"The last couple of games, Rotherham and Blackpool, teams that have been in similar situations, they can be just as tricky and hard and difficult as playing anyone that’s in and around the play-offs at the moment.”