Luton are unafraid of their 'underdog' status - they embrace it. Rob Edwards details his plans to extend the Hatters' Premier League stay beyond a single season; watch Luton vs Aston Villa on Saturday, live on Sky Sports Main Event from 5pm; kick-off 5.30pm
Saturday 2 March 2024 07:10, UK
Luton Town have made a good habit of defying the odds.
There are pertinent stories everywhere you look, starting with the rather sizeable feat of making it all the way to the Premier League in the first place.
Luton are not a club blessed with riches. They do not benefit from ridiculously wealthy investors or financiers with bottomless pockets. They do not have a grand stadium or state-of-the-art training facilities.
What they do have is quite unique in the Premier League - a division dominated by the well-heeled and filthy rich. Luton have forged an unbreakable spirit - a club nestled in the heart of a working-class, industrial town, that continues to challenge the confines of its status on merit alone.
There is nothing glamorous about Kenilworth Road, the club's home since 1905, nor does there need to be, but there is power in unity, and that is something manager Rob Edwards holds dear as Luton enter the final 13 games of their bid to stay in the top flight. Crunch time.
Ahead of facing Aston Villa on Saturday, live on Sky Sports, Edwards sat down for an exclusive chat at the club's Bedfordshire training base, accessed to the rear of Aldi supermarket, and did so with a glint in his eye. Luton Town is a cause he believes in. His players feel the same way, and together they have forged a coalition of defiance.
"There are brilliant stories across the board," Edwards says, referencing the long list of sacrifices made to reach the top league in the land. "Look at Tom Lockyer," - who collapsed on the pitch after suffering a cardiac arrest against Bournemouth in December - "he has gone from the National League to captaining a Premier League side, scoring a Premier League goal. Pelly [Ruddock Mpanzu] has been here from the start.
"Ross Barkley has had many tough years and is now playing some of the football of his life, Carlton Morris is taking his opportunity at 28, Elijah Adebayo is a bit younger but the same applies. There is spirit here, an amazing environment of support."
This is not the first recital of Luton's many merits, nor will it be the last. Their underdog story will continue to be told no matter the outcome of this campaign. It's extraordinary, bordering on ridiculous, that a club which dropped out of the Football League altogether as recently as 2009 is now competing in the Premier League.
Opta currently gives Luton a 69 per cent of finishing in the bottom three this term. How do you fight that?
"If we're going to go down let's go down swinging," Edwards replies, boldly. "Brentford was a bit of a turning point." Luton were beaten 3-1 by the Bees in December.
"We spent hours in this office dissecting that game and my conclusion was that 'we have to go for this'. Now we're trying to be more us: aggressive in our pressing, retaining the ball better, being braver with it, carrying a threat. We weren't getting it right - distances weren't right, it was too easy to get down the sides, so we've adjusted our style and shape."
The stats back up the boss's assertions. Luton have had more passes, higher short-pass percentage and more possession per game in their last nine encounters when compared to their first 16. Mindset has shifted. "We're starting to see the team I want us to be, but to evolve in the Premier League is difficult," Edwards continues.
"I love how we've progressed, and I wasn't sure we'd be able to do it. Last year we didn't play the way I wanted to play, but it was about winning. If I'd have come in with too much ego and told the boys to start popping the ball about in risky areas, it wouldn't have suited us in that moment. This year we've changed more than I anticipated.
"I know it sounds mad but now we'll go to Tottenham, Arsenal and Man City and try to win the game. We have to learn from things we've got wrong, but you have to chase wins to stay in this league."
Embrace change: change is good. That is how Luton plan to approach their last remaining league fixtures - with an all-or-nothing attitude.
It had been 32 long years since the Hatters concerned themselves with the top flight. Edwards accepts his side spent the first few months of the season figuring the Premier League out, getting up to tempo, assessing the jump in intensity. But now they have regained some of the conviction and composure that was perhaps lost in the bright lights and hysteria of the all-consuming Premier League.
"We've given ourselves a chance. We're in the fight. Last year when we were targeting promotion, the route I went down was 'let's be in the mix with five games to go' - this is no different.
"There is a huge amount of belief. Since the Brentford game, I've liked us. I've liked our performances, we're in good form. It's not all perfect, we've got to brush up, we've conceded too many goals recently, but I'm positive.
"If we stayed up it would be like us winning the treble - our version of it. We want to grow, there is a long-term plan, and I'd like to think if we did it this year we can continue moving forward with optimism.
"We don't feel sorry for ourselves, and it's nice if people have taken to us, it's nice if maybe we're some people's second team because of how we're trying to compete and play," he added, when questioned about the Luton Town love-in on social media, where many football fans have been swept up by the romanticism of so-called "minnows" - Edward's word, not mine - mixing it with football's elite.
There is a humility about the former Forest Green boss, and indeed Luton as a whole. A warmth and gratification for the position they find themselves in. "I want to show what we are as a team on the biggest stage and recently we've been doing that," the 41-year-old says. "We can't have regrets. We don't want to look back and regret things. We want to win, but it matters to me how we do it."
Mick Harford, Luton's chief recruitment officer, had graciously vacated his desk adjacent to where Edwards sat down before the interview got going. "Are you the next big thing in journalism?" he asked on his way out, wearing a friendly smile. "Good luck with it."
Whether he was aiming the last bit at me or Edwards was unclear, but the sentiment resonated all the same. In some professional settings amiability feels horribly hollow, but not at Luton. Their rise from the National League to the Premier League in 10 short years, which saw them promoted under four different managers, including Edwards, will go down as one of football's, nay sport's, most inspirational tales. A generational triumph.
"We might have to be underdogs for a while, but we want to get to a point where Luton in the Premier League is considered a norm," Edwards says. "I don't want to get ahead of myself and start talking second season, because this is hard. We aren't perfect, and we've made mistakes. Sometimes I go nuts on the touchline or say things I shouldn't, I get emotional. We also aren't everyone's favourite and we can be better, but we are a bit different, and that uniqueness is hard to find."
Watch Luton vs Aston Villa on Saturday, live on Sky Sports Main Event from 5pm; kick-off 5.30pm.
You can now start receiving messages and alerts for the latest breaking sports news, analysis, in-depth features and videos from our dedicated WhatsApp channel!
