With a little over half an hour gone, Luton were a goal down at Sunderland but had the perfect opportunity to pull level. A floated freekick from the right, a sprawling save from a header and there it was. A bouncing ball, an open goal, a panicked swing of a left boot. Sliding Sunderland legs surrounded Milli Alli as he absorbed what had happened, before he was remonstrating with the referee. The officials, however, had saved him. His impossible miss from one yard out, erased from the xG annals by an offside flag. A perfect encapsulation of a diabolical Luton Town campaign.
Heading into this weekend, Luton are bottom of The Championship. For the longest time I saw their slide as a blip. ‘Rob Edwards will turn it around’, I’d tell myself and all who’d listen. ‘They can stick with him, and go again next season, especially with the Premier League parachute payments.’
From the outside looking in, it seemed quite simple but with Edwards gone, their wretched run is yet to abate. For the 307 travelling fans the Sunderland game was their 14th winless away watch in a row. Luton’s last victory was at Kenilworth Road before Christmas. That foreboding sense of deflation is now part of the pre-match routine.
“We’re turning up expecting a defeat, and that’s sad.” Dave Gregory, presenter of the Oh When The Town Podcast, tells me.
“In the Premier League, you can have that because the players that we were playing against were world class. And the budgets and everything else, you didn’t expect to beat Arsenal and Liverpool, but we’d give them a good run. But we’re turning up now thinking ‘well, we’re just going to play the same formation. We’re going to play the same way, with no gusto, no guts.’ And I go, expecting to lose.”
It’s just over a year since Luton had their peak Premier League moment. A 4-0 demolition of Brighton, taking the lead after just 19 seconds after stealing the ball from kick-off, with Elijah Adebayo nodding home, under the lights at a ferocious Kenilworth Road. He would leave with the match ball but looking at that XI, it’s the ones that haven’t returned, that have really hit home.
“We didn’t really commit too much to the Premier League in the transfer window. The 1st January [window] was where we could have made an impact and maybe stayed up. We had some good footballers last season. But we lost Ross Barkley, Sambi Lokonga, Chiedozie Ogbene and Gabe Osho and I think, we’re missing those players more than we thought we would.”
Diving deep on the departed
Looking at the data, Dave is spot on. Luton lost the spine of their side, and it shows. Ross Barkley arrived in Bedfordshire with his reputation in tatters. Before a failed move to Nice, he was the latest promising English midfielder to be chewed up and spat out at Chelsea. But after five goals and four Premier League assists and pulling the strings in the middle of the park and a 7.3 FotMob rating in a team finishing 18th, it’s no surprise he’s ended up in the Champions League with Aston Villa.
Could Luton have done any more to secure Sambi Lokonga from Arsenal? Injury has hampered his impact at Sevilla but when, last May, he described joining Luton as ‘the best decision’ of his life. Perhaps they could have shelled out for the 25-year-old Belgian. But, Luton, along with my own club Bury, know all about what happens when finances aren’t under control. Whilst I’m watching my side in division nine these days, Luton had successive relegations out of the EFL entirely before their triumphant return and meteoric rise to the Premier League. Under fan ownership, the club have plans for a new stadium, but that work means that cash for new faces hasn’t been all there and that will continue even if they’re trying to re-build again if they suffer another relegation.
“It’s imperative that we stay up because all your bigger players, all those transfer records we’ve broken since being in the Premier League and coming back from it, paying £5 – 10m for a player – Luton Town have never done that up until last season. We could lose those players and then we have to re-build on a budget and a shoestring to get back up, even though we’ve got the payments from the Premier League because they’re going to be put aside for other things.”
League One beckons?
The last side to suffer the fate that Luton fans are fearing, was indeed Sunderland. It’s taken the best part of a decade for them to get the feel-good factor back. Now they’re at the right end of the second tier and dreaming of their own Premier League return. It’s a situation that Luton’s new man in the dugout can dream about, if he keeps them up.
Matt Bloomfield arrived at The Kenny off the back of a sterling second season at Wycombe Wanderers. For me, it felt like the right man at the wrong time. Bloomfield has traded a promotion push with a side where he’s a club legend to one in the mire, where he’s an unknown. His status at The Chairboys afforded him time to turn around a team that had struggled following relegation from The Championship. At Luton he has had little time so far to get his methods in to practice and their listless midweek performance in the North East shows a lot more work is needed.
“When we talk about Matt Bloomfield, has he got time to turn things around? Well, yeah, clearly. But in his first five games, he has no wins. It’s unusual for a manager to come in and not get that new manager bounce. We got some new signings in this January window and they look quite exciting, so it’s not all doom and gloom at this stage. However, it does feel like we’ve appointed a manager just in case we get relegated to League One.”
Divided we fall…
If there’s one thing that you’d say has defined Luton since their return to the EFL, it’s been that desire and fight that gets everyone on their feet. That has been lacking and it’s something Dave says, has had a massive impact on all aspects of the club.
“The togetherness has totally gone from the fans and the club. All that good work we did going into the Premier League and getting people on our side, has gone. There’s a lot of backbiting between the fans. We just don’t look like we’ve got a clue in any department. I thought the tide had turned when we had better showings against Watford and Sunderland at home, but we’ve been absolutely abysmal in every area.”
Next up is Sheffield United. I was at the reverse fixture and even then, Luton looked lost. Given where each side is, it feels like a write-off.
And then, there’s the real test. Lose in the week to a resurgent Plymouth Argyle and I cannot imagine how bad it will be at Kenilworth Road. After those two, it’s the small matter of travelling to Hertfordshire to face Watford. Two pivotal weeks for Matt Bloomfield and Luton but I’m an optimist, so let’s end on a positive: Hatters fans, imagine how you’ll feel if you’re celebrating at least back-to-back wins after victory at Vicarage Road.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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