Matt Bloomfield admits the scale of Luton’s summer rebuild means his new-look squad has taken time to gel, but he is convinced supporters can now be excited about what lies ahead.
Town brought in 14 players and saw 14 senior players depart following back-to-back relegations from the Premier League and Championship and, despite the squad turnover, the Hatters were still installed in the summer as one of the favourites for promotion back to the second tier.
They’ve won four and lost two League One games in a congested and arguably unconvincing August, though in each of those victories, they’ve kept a clean sheet, which has equalled their best ever defensive start to a Football League campaign, with defensive solidity a top priority after conceding the second highest amount of goals in the Championship last term.
But the last two games in the league and the Vertu Trophy has seen the Hatters hit seven goals, with the forwards Lasse Nordås and Jerry Yates breaking their ducks for the club, finding the net in last Tuesday’s 4-1 triumph over Barnet, where Shayden Morris also bagged from the spot on his debut after joining from Aberdeen the day before. Both games have offered signs of improvement in attacking areas.
Like many of his peers, Bloomfield maintained throughout the summer that the transfer window remaining open for a month into the season was not ideal, but now that has been shut for a week, and with last Saturday’s trip to Blackpool postponed due to international call-ups, Town have a longer period of time to get the new recruits up to speed, ahead of this weekend’s visit of Plymouth Argyle.
“I’m a fairly football statto, but I don’t know if there’s been many windows at many clubs that has been such a turnover of players, and it’s just been a really busy and really hard working four months, and we’ve all been working all hours of the day and weekend to try and get to the best place we possibly can,” the Hatters boss said.
“There’s been a lot of hard work that goes into it, and we hope that everyone’s pleased with the work that we’ve done. There’s always going to be opinions about that and that’s absolutely natural, but we’ve worked so incredibly hard to get a team that our supporters can be proud of and can be excited about. I believe we’ve done that, and now it’s up to us to put the pedal firmly on the metal and push forward as quickly as we possibly can.”
He added: “I think there’s been a huge change. And that’s never going to look perfect straight away is it. You know, because you’ve got a team that’s trying to mould together, that’s trying to evolve together and it’s never going to look perfect straight away.”
Bloomfield said the overhaul was a natural consequence of the club’s journey over the past two years, with Alfie Doughty, Carlton Morris, Thomas Kaminski, Amari’i Bell, Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu, Tahith Chong, Reece Burke, Daiki Hashioka, Cauley Woodrow (loan) and Tim Krul all leaving the club, having been in the Premier League squad 18 months ago. Of that squad, there were also reports of exits for Teden Mengi (Burnley) and Jacob Brown (Bristol City) on transfer deadline, though nothing materialised.
Bloomfield said: “It’s a natural cycle. To get to the Premier League was just such an incredible achievement. And when you come out of that and then drop again, I feel like it’s just a natural cycle that a lot of those boys would like to move on and play at the levels they’ve just been at.
“And that’s a natural human instinct and reaction that they would be desired elsewhere. Again, very natural in the football food chain. If you’re in the third tier and players are desired by teams in the second tier, it’s going to naturally come to a resolution at some point.”
While the transfer window is now shut for signing players from other clubs, Luton have left room in their squad should a free agent become available.
“I think it’s really important that we’re just open minded now,” said Bloomfield, adding: “I think we’re really pleased with the group. There are free agents out there. So if their situation arises where we go and need to sign someone we’ll certainly be aware of that. There is space in the senior squad. But, yeah, we’re happy with the business we’ve done and we work forward to this group.”
