Luton chief urges fans to recreate Brentford atmosphere against Stoke

Hatters boss Graeme Jones has urged supporters to reproduce the atmosphere created during Tuesday night’s 2-1 victory over Brentford when Stoke City visit Kenilworth Road this afternoon.

The home faithful were in fine voice in midweek, roaring their side to a wonderful win over the promotion-chasing Bees, particularly in the second half, as the noise was ratcheted up every time Town cleared their lines, or put in a full-blooded a challenge, to inch closer to victory.

Jones now hopes that will be the case again when welcoming a side who Luton could move two points behind with a fourth win from five.

He said: “I’d love them to from minute one, but I think that relationship between players and fans is sometimes two way.

"Sometimes the players need to spark the fans and sometimes the fans need to spark the players.

"Apart from a couple of games this season, the fans have been really, really supportive and really, really intelligent.

"If it doesn’t start well, we need them and if it does start well, we need them even more.

"I think our supporters are intelligent enough to recognise that, so if they can reproduce Tuesday night’s supporter's display, that would go a long way to helping us getting a positive result.”

An early goal certainly helped on Tuesday night, as one Shandon Baptiste put through his own net inside the opening 10 minutes, it gave the Hatters something to build on.

Jones has been impressed with the way his side are learning to begin matches too, saying: "I think we start games like that now, so there’s a resilience there from minute one.

"It’s personnel sometimes, but I’ve never ever questioned the character in the players.

"They needed time to learn and when you're on a learning process for any of us here, adults going from young adults to adults, there’s always a difficult period.

"Everybody has to make mistakes, that’s all we’ve done, but only the honest ones who put themselves out there get rewarded.

"If you're hiding and you're blaming then you'll forever have the same problems in your life.

"That's been the beauty of this ride.

"We’ve got a group of lads who have taken it on the chin, given everything they've got, it’s not been good enough at times, come back for more, now all of a sudden, we’re a competitive Championship outfit and that has to continue."

Jones himself was also cheered off at half time, when he had his name chanted by a section of the home support, a world away from the reception he received after walking off following the 2-1 home defeat to Birmingham last month.

However, the boss wasn't getting carried away, adding: "I don’t really take that much notice, I’ve got a job to do so I’m quite focused whether I’m walking in if we’re getting beat or walking in when we’re in the lead, you’ve still got a job to do, and that’s what the way I think.

"You want the whole club united which we are, and I said there would be tough times coming.

"I remember speaking after the Forest game in October, saying we’re in a relegation fight here and we’re going to need everybody.

"When it’s doom and gloom we need to stick together even more, because these boys give everything they've got, the staff do and it will be for the right reasons, and if we do do that we’ll be judged and that’s exactly what's happened.

"We're in the melting pot, we've achieved nothing, we've got to keep being competitive, we've got to keep out standards high, supporters, players, staff.

"We’re all in it together, 11 games, there's 33 points to fight for, so picture hasn’t changed for me.”