Luton Town boss Matt Bloomfield has downplayed suggestions that tomorrow’s trip to Stevenage should be given special derby day treatment – but admitted his men cannot afford another slow start.
The Hatters make the short journey into Hertfordshire this weekend for their first league meeting with Stevenage in six years, and though there are just 13 miles separating the two clubs, for Town supporters, Watford will always remains the fiercely traditional rivalry.
Nevertheless, with Boro second in League One and undefeated at home, Bloomfield knows what awaits his men if they begin the clash as sluggishly as they did at Blackpool on Tuesday night, where they conceded two goals before a spirited late fightback to earn a point.
Asked if Luton may need to treat the contest like a derby, the manager said: “We’ve got to treat it like it’s a game of football and it’s a good team who are very strong at home and we got to just play a game that’s in front of us.
“The last two away performances, we’ve started slow, so we will need to correct that. We need to make sure we’re solid and organised and don’t give any leg up to our opposition like we have in the last two away games, because you do that, it’s a tough afternoon, or evening as it was on Tuesday evening.
“So we’ve got to make sure that we come out just focused on the game in hand, focused on what we need to do to be our best selves, and we have to play the game in front of us, not the occasion.”
He added: “Both the last two away games, we have given ourselves too much to do. Tuesday evening, we managed to get ourselves back [level], but we’ve got to stop doing that if we want to be the away team that we want to be.
“It’s any game away from home, you’ve got to come out ready to be organised and compete for first and second balls. That was the thing that disappointed me on Tuesday evening. We were too passive. So that’s [late comeback] got to be the benchmark of our away performances and we got to build a performance from there.”
Stevenage, under Bloomfield’s former Wycombe team-mate Alex Revell – who has called the game a derby – have won all four of their league games at the Lamex Stadium this season, conceding just once.
Bloomfield said. “Stevenage have started incredibly well. They’ve had good consistency amongst the group for three or four years, the main bulk of the group. I’m not surprised they’ve started strongly. They’re a very, very honest group. They all know their jobs. Rev’s got them working incredibly hard and they’ve got some good quality about them.
“We’re in for a tough game, but we’re coming off the back of two good results. Two intermittent performances, at times, possibly, but we’ve got to go after a 95, 96 minute performance. If we do that, we believe we can have a good day.”
For many Luton fans, though Stevenage are seen as near neighbours rather than true rivals, the short trip and ticket demand for the sold out game underline the significance of the occasion.
The expectation from fans remains on seventh-placed Luton to perform as well as get results. The trip to Stevenage is likely to the third run-out for Bloomfield’s changed formation of 4-2-3-1, having ditched the much-maligned three at the back after the bruising 3-1 defeat at Lincoln last month.
But the Hatters boss believes he’s seeing development and growth in his squad, which saw a big summer of transfer comings and goings.
“We’re now [in a] changed formation, got lads now getting up to speed, fitness-wise, people coming back from injuries, adapting to positions,” Bloomfield said, adding: “A couple still maybe slightly not playing their most natural position because again, the balance of the squad between the three and four. I think that’s obvious.
“So, we’re making do in a certain moments, but people are growing, learning the roles and I definitely think there’s signs of improvement. We’ve had two tough games this week against Doncaster and Blackpool and come out at four points. So, there’s definitely signs of improvement.”
Asked how his players are adapting to the formation change, Bloomfield said: “We’ve shown some really good signs and also some moments that we’re not maybe covering enough or we’re not quite getting the positional play.
“Defensively, we’ve given away two goals on Tuesday evening that are far too soft. Looking back at the game and looking at all the numbers from the game, for a game that we territorially dominated, we didn’t create enough clear-cut chances, which, again, is something we’ve spoken about a number of times this season.
“We’ve given away two really good goalscoring opportunities from our opposition not having to work too hard for them. So there’s plenty to go after within any shape and the intensity and the fight and the spirit, that doesn’t matter what formation you play. That’s about who you are as a person, as a group.”
He added: “There’s loads that we can still get better at, positioning-wise, structure-wise, organisational-wise. There’s loads of parts of this shape that are starting to come out and there’s loads that we can still go after – more detail and better outcomes for the football we’re playing.
“I’m really excited about what we’re doing at the moment. I’m really energised by it, but there’s loads to go after. And the basics of the game don’t change. Players make games of football, not formations. We can’t get caught up between the fours right and the three is wrong.
“The basics of the game, the fundamentals of football will not change and never will change. So we have to make sure we do those properly and we’re doing that to a degree at the moment, but we have to do it for 95, 96 minutes to start picking up the points that I know that we’re capable of doing.”
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