Powell calls for 'non-stop' support from Luton's travelling army on final day

Town assistant manager Chris Powell has called for some ‘non-stop’ support from those in the away end at Bolton Wanderers tomorrow, as the Hatters look to get the win that could see them feature in the end of season play-offs.

Luton make the trip to Greater Manchester for their final game of the regular League One campaign, although would love nothing more for it to lead to two extra games, and then a third at Wembley. To achieve that they will need to beat a Trotters outfit who have lost just once in the league on home soil in the league this term, then hope that either Stevenage lose or draw to Wigan Athletic, Bradford City go down to defeat at Exeter City, or Stockport County are beaten by Barnsley.

A draw could be enough if Boro are beaten and Plymouth Argyle, in eighth, fail to secure all three points at basement side Northampton Town, but with the Cobblers having lost 14 of their last 15 fixtures, that doesn’t appear to be a realistic method of reaching the top six. Since he has been at Kenilworth Road, Powell has witnessed Town’s supporters suffer some real lows on the road, especially during their 11-game winless run, which thankfully came to an end at Wycombe Wanderers six weeks ago when they triumphed 2-1.

Following that day in Buckinghamshire, Luton have been cheered off at most away grounds, as they are currently on a six game unbeaten streak outside of Bedfordshire, while they showed just what support they can muster when taking over 30,000 supporters to Wembley for their Vertu Trophy final win over Stockport recently. On what he would like to see from those travelling to the Toughsheet Stadium, Powell said: “I just think from the moment they wake up on Saturday, non-stop support, non-stop.

"No matter what’s going on or how you’re feeling, just non-stop support as it only takes a second to change. We’ve all been through it where you’re checking your phones, or in the old day listening to the radio, someone scores a goal and it goes for you, or it might go against you for a moment and that’s when you’re going to need the support. We just need everyone to just be together, sing their hearts out. Even if things aren’t going well, sing your hearts out and hopefully we can make it a day to remember.”

Although there is a huge amount riding on the result, Town desperate to be back in the Championship once more rather than face another year in the third tier, boss Jack Wilshere and his coaching team won’t be building things up too much, as they did at the home of English football last month. Powell continued: “We’ve always tried to act as normal as we can, even the final against Stockport, we just went night before, went in tracksuits, didn’t go in suits, we just tried to treat it as normally as we could.

"We understood the occasion and the emotion of it all, and that’s very similar for this game. We understand there’s going to be a lot of emotion behind it, but we understand what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to do our job. The players are clear, but a normal week, normal preparation and try to take the heat off really. They’re surrounded by it, it’s on their phone, in papers, on TV, we understand that, but it’s just about us going up there and doing our best to get a result and hope and pray that one or two things go for us elsewhere, which I have a feeling they will.”

Wilshere himself also stated that training at the Brache will be designed to give the players every chance of getting what they need at Bolton, as he felt they weren’t quite at it when beating Barnsley 2-1 last weekend. Speaking after the game, he added: “We’ll probably need to get the balance right between intensity that we do in training as I felt that it was a bit flat at times (against Barnsley), so we want everyone fresh going there.

"We need to take confidence and belief there, we need to understand what gives us the confidence and belief is doing the things that we’ve been speaking about all season and just doing it more consistently. That was our message to the players before the game, the outside noise is you need to win and of course we know that, but if we go into a game just thinking we need to win, win, win, I feel the performance won’t be there.

"It’s all about doing the right things, making sure we’re in the game. I’ve said to the players, we weren’t at our best and we definitely need to be better next week, but there also is a realisation and a mentality in that group that gets the job done and that is also very important. We have to get the balance right of training now, make sure we’re fresh to go there, but also that we’re following the same process to try and get the best performance to try and win the game.

“After what the players have given over the last block of games, also knowing that the context of each game is you have to win, we’ve tried to frame it to them about process and if we get everything right that we talk about the confidence is we win the game. So it’s nice to get to this point knowing that a big push in the last game we can try and win and then see what happens. We can only control what we do and we’ve given ourselves a chance to get in there.”