Sweet knows Luton's recruitment in the upcoming transfer window is going to be 'critical'

Luton chief executive Gary Sweet believes Town's recruitment this summer is going to be ‘critical’ as they look to keep progressing in the Championship next term.

The Hatters could be in for a busy time in the transfer market, with a host of their squad out of contract, including long-serving trio Sonny Bradley, Matty Pearson and James Collins, while they have been linked heavily with Swindon Town’s Scott Twine and a number of other players.

Town announced a new scouting and recruitment department back in February to aid manager Nathan Jones in his bid for new signings with former Stoke City and Norwich City head of first-team recruitment Phil Chapple named head of scouting operations, while football data analyst Jay Socik was appointed head of recruitment analysis.

Sweet insists that will play a huge part in Town’s attempts to attract new players, saying: “We need to hold our nerve, keep buying season tickets and all the ways the supporters can, it really does help us and allows us to focus on the main job in hand.

“The recruitment this year is going to be critical to what we do next year on the pitch.

“We’re in a really good place.

“The whole idea of restructuring our recruitment earlier in the year was we could identify players before any other club, so that we can capture them before they hit their peak in values, which means we can keep budgets on track, but still bring the quality in and that’s why we really need the financial support of supporters.”

Since boss Jones returned in May last year, he has made some astute additions, bringing in the likes of Jordan Clark and Tom Lockyer, while January signings Kal Naismith and Elijah Adebayo have both become key components of the first team already.

Sweet added: “Those more recent signings which have been really on the back of what we can achieve with a little bit of money and some clever intelligence in recruitment.

"That’s the proof in the pudding, so we want to do more of that.”