Town's leading marksman not overly concerned by an apparent lack of home advantage

Town striker James Collins isn’t overly concerned about the apparent lack of home advantage existing since football returned in front of empty stadiums due the coronavirus pandemic.

A snapshot of the Bundesliga in Germany, the country which resumed competitive action first, returning on May 16, shows that matches behind closed doors has been something of a leveller.

In fact, of the 55 fixtures completed when the Luton News went to press on Tuesday afternoon, there had been just 11 home victories, with 16 draws and a hefty 28 triumphs for the visiting side.

Ahead of the run-in, Luton fans were relying on home games against Preston, Reading, Barnsley, QPR and Blackburn to give them enough points to avoid relegation to League One, with five of their nine matches at Kenilworth Road, although that now doesn’t seem such a significant boost.

When asked if much could be read into it, Collins said: “No, I don’t think so.

“I don’t know if that’s just coincidence but not playing in front of a crowd and Kenilworth Road might not be as intimidating to people coming to our place, but I don’t know if it will make a difference or not.

“I suppose it could give us an advantage going away to teams as well.

“Obviously when we go to Elland Road, we’re not going to be playing in front of 40,000 fans geeing them on.

“It’s whatever way you look at it, it will either go in your favour or not.”

Town chief Nathan Jones had mentioned that he would undertake some psychological work with his players in an attempt to prepare them for a lack of supporters.

Collins appreciates it will be a strange situation with no fans in attendance, especially during night games at Kenilworth Road, as he continued: “We haven’t had anything so far.

“Maybe leading into this week, we might have something coming up, but nothing’s been arranged so far.

“I think it’s going to be a bit of mixed emotions, it’s going to be a bit of exciting getting the games back up and running, but when you’re running out to no fans and used to it being a full house there, it will be strange.

"But we're professionals, we know we've got a job to do and we've played a few in-house games at Kenilworth Road and when you’re playing, you don’t really notice it.

"I think we will miss the fans geeing us up a little bit and especially if we play at home on a Tuesday night as they’re usually really special occasions under the lights, but we’re professionals and we’ll just have to get on with it.

“The lads know that it’s definitely not a friendly and definitely not a reserve game, there’s points at stake and points that we need."

Collins, 29, who is one of the club's longest serving players, having made 130 appearances since signing from Crawley in the summer of 2017, knows he has a role to ensure the squad approach their remaining nine matches with the right mindset.

He added: "The lads' mentality will have to be right and the staff and the senior players will be making sure that is the mentality going into games.

"II think if we do treat it like anything else well be in trouble.

"But I'm certainly confident no-one will treat it like that and we’ll all be raring to go, making sure we put in our best performances."