Luton Town: Nathan Jones says promotion pressure is on Hatters' Championship rivals

Nathan Jones' win rate since returning as Hatters boss in May 2020 is 44 from 102 games - almost one in every two

Luton Town boss Nathan Jones says his over-achieving promotion-chasing Championship side can enjoy a pressure-free end to the season as the Hatters try to sneak back into the top flight.

Jones' Hatters have risen to third in the second tier - now within sight of a first promotion to the Premier League.

Luton have not been in England's top tier since dropping out in 1992, the year the Premier League began.

But Jones says: "We're in a great place and we've got nothing to fear."

The Hatters' post-Christmas run of 11 wins in 16 league games has lifted them to third, their highest league position since Mike Newell had Luton challenging for promotion in October 2005, just prior to the club's financial downfall - and eventual nosedive all the way to the National League.

• April 2019 - Luton promoted back to Championship

• April 2018 - Luton promoted back to League One

• April 2014 - Luton promoted back into Football League

But asked whether suddenly hitting such a high spot in the league table now puts pressure on the Hatters, Jones was quite firm in his rebuttal.

"There's a lot more pressure on everyone else around us," he told BBC Three Counties Radio. "If the sides around us don't go up, then it's more than just pride that gets hurt.

"If anyone had said that, with eight games to go, Luton would be third in the Championship, there would have been a lot of laughing going on. But, with us, we're evolving.

"What we wanted to do was to beat last year and progress from that. We have now done that because we've got more points with eight games to go then we had last year.

"Numbers wise, we far outweigh last season. We have progressed again. Realistically, our job's done."

Luton Town's run-in:

Having said all that, Jones is as pleased as anyone that Luton now have the luxury of the international break to enable his injury woes to ease before their next game at home to Millwall on 2 April.

With five central defenders out, the Hatters' back five has been made up of four full-backs and a winger - allied to a squad with tremendous team spirit and a dressing room full of great characters.

"The pride I have is phenomenal," said Jones. "This is the tightest, most hard-working, humble side I've ever had.

"The players deserve everything they're getting at the minute. The energy, the desire, the work-rate, We keep going after teams. We're relentless.

"It's [also] tough mentally, not just on the players, but on the staff. It's the monotony. Preparing them, going through the emotion of the game, debriefing them and then going through the same thing all over again. From game to game, from debrief to debrief. We all definitely need a break.

"We have eight absolutely huge games to come and hopefully we'll all be far more refreshed."

Happy days at the Hatters again

Having been beaten FA Cup finalists in 1959, Luton spent the 1960s and 1970s becoming best known as the great Eric Morecambe's club until the Hatters' most successful days from 1982 to 1996, when they spent 14 seasons in the top flight, including a Wembley League Cup final win over Arsenal in 1988.

A decade later, they looked to be building a side ready to challenge again before running into financial problems.

The £3m sale of Curtis Davies to West Bromwich Albion in August 2005 was followed a summer later by Steve Howard (£1m to Leicester City) and Kevin Nicholls (£750,000 to Leeds United), and then Carlos Edwards (£1.4m to Sunderland) and Rowan Vine (£2.5m to Birmingham City) in January 2007, and also Kevin Foley and Dave Edwards to Wolves.

But the financial woes eventually led to points deductions - 10 points in 2007-08, then 30 the season after - as they suffered three successive relegations to drop out of the Football League.

After five seasons in the fifth division, John Still started the rise back up English football's pyramid when Luton won the Conference in 2014.

Nathan Jones, in his first spell as Luton boss, took the Hatters up behind Accrington Stanley from League Two in 2018. And then, after Jones left to join Stoke the following January, caretaker boss Mick Harford, who had been Luton's manager when they exited the Football League in 2009, completed a second successive promotion.

Now can they become the first side to go all the way down from the top to the fifth tier, and then back again?