New Hatters boss wants to carry on attacking teams when Luton are on the road

Luton boss Matt Bloomfield has declared a willingness to see his new side go on the attack away from home in a bid to end their lengthy search for an away victory this evening.

The 40-year-old’s word should be good too, having left a Wycombe Wanderers side who had the best record on the road in League One this season, winning eight from their 13 games outside of Buckinghamshire during his tenure, finding the net an impressive 32 times as well, including scoring five at Stockport County and four at Shrewsbury Town.

Although he has stepped up a level to the Championship, joining a club who are deep in relegation trouble this term, Bloomfield won’t be changing his mindset and, unlike Preston North End did on Saturday, turn up just looking for a point from the opening whistle. He said: “If you look at our results away from home earlier in the season, we want to attack.

"When we’re defending we want to attack as quickly as we can and if we’re attacking we need to make sure we’re guarding against counter-attacks and moments, so it’s not just words, we want to go and score goals. We want to go and attack away from home as well as at home, we want to implement ourselves in the game, we want to really imprint ourselves in the football match and if we have a clear identity, we believe we can do that.”

Picking up the three points that would give the Hatters’ survival hopes a huge shot in the arm won’t be easy though as like Town, Oxford opted to change manager recently too, replacing Des Buckingham, who brought second tier football to the U’s, with an experienced campaigner in Gary Rowett. That switch was made almost a month ago, with the former Birmingham, Millwall, Stoke and Derby boss enjoying the kind of new manager bounce that Bloomfield is after, winning his first three matches, extending that run to four from six in the Championship, drawing the other two against Preston and Plymouth Argyle.

The U's are pretty dominant on home soil too, with seven victories picked up at the Kassam Stadium, as Bloomfield continued: “They’re the form team, very good at home and have been picking up results recently. Their shape and style haven’t changed too much since Gary’s gone in there, but they’re definitely getting more results than what they were previously. He’s a man of very good experience and knowledge, he knows the level and he’s getting a lot out of those boys at the minute. So it’ll be a stern test for us, but we’re looking forward to the game, we want to continue and build on what we did on Saturday, there’s loads to work on.”

When Luton went up against Oxford at Kenilworth Road back in early October, they let a 2-0 lead slip to draw 2-2, also seeing Liam Walsh sent off just 36 seconds after coming off the bench in the second period. With both dug-outs now having different managers, then Bloomfield won’t be looking too much at that contest during his preparation, as he said: “I haven’t gone back and watched that game, that’s not one I’ll watch, as we try and watch them a little bit more recently.

"We’ve watched a lot of their footage recently, they’re obviously playing with a lot more belief now as they’ve had a few really good wins and a spring at home. It’s always a tough place to go, the crowd get behind them and it will be a tough game for us, no doubt about it, all the Championship games are. Both managers have changed, there’s going to be different elements of the game and we believe we’re well prepared.”

On how his players have responded to another few days training with him too at the Brache, Bloomfield added: “Really good, we were in on Sunday morning, the boys that played cooled down, the others lads trained, they were sharp, they were at it, they were very good. We’ve had a debrief meeting from the game on Saturday and tried to align that with our preparation for Tuesday evening as well. They've been very receptive the boys, I feel like watching the game back and reiterating about the identity of the performance was a step in the right direction of where we want to go.

"I thought there were some good moments out of possession, I was really, really pleased, although I suggest that there’s going to be sterner tests for us defensively as the season moves on, I absolutely understand that. We obviously want to have more of a goal threat, but there were some good moments in the game and plenty to build on. We’ve got optimism filling us through the performance and there’s plenty to go after which is what we like to do.”