Mick Harford says Luton are “dreaming” and “full of confidence” going into their first ever Premier League campaign and he has highlighted how many wins will be needed to stay in the division, plus a “big asset” that will help them achieve their target.
The chief recruitment officer is leading the charge to find new players with “quality” that will add to the promotion winners and help the Hatters have a successful season.
Luton are already being pegged as relegation fodder having won the Championship play-offs last month with a 6-5 penalty shootout victory over Coventry.
But in the camp, that day at Wembley marked another step of progress which has seen them rise from the non-league to the Premier League in just nine years, the only club ever to achieve that feat.
And so confidence is high that Town can defy the odds to remain in the top flight they last played in 31 years ago, when Harford was still lacing up his boots.
While the striker was relegated with the Hatters in the summer before the first Premier League season in 1992, he did transfer to Chelsea where he scored the Londoners’ first-ever goal in the new division, so has a history with the competition.
Talking of Town’s chances in the coming campaign, Harford said: “The aim is to win games and stay up. I think we need to win ten games, then hopefully draw six or seven and that’ll keep us in the league.
“We’re going there full of confidence, and you know we’ve got a big asset in Kenilworth Road.
“It’s a tough place to come and teams coming down will find it very, very tough and we’ll make it very difficult for them.”
Hatters fans will have to wait until match day two to make good on that promise when Championship winners Burnley come to town.
“We are dreaming,” Harford told Sky Sports, adding: “There’s a lot of belief at the football club. We’ve been climbing the leagues steadily over the last ten years and we got to the point where we were in the Championship last year in the play-offs. Unfortunately, we lost year.
“We just kept building and building and this year was a fantastic year, Rob (Edwards) coming in, steadying the ship and playing some good football. He did a magnificent job of getting us promoted. I’m really looking forward to the challenge now.”
That will begin with a curtain-raising trip to Bright and Hove Albion on August 12. By then, Luton will hope to have added to their squad, as well as securing the services of Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu, Tom Lockyer and Amari’i Bell who have all been offered new deals to join Luke Berry, who extended his stay at Kenilworth Road at the weekend by penning a new contract.
Harford said: “We’ll try and keep the core of the group together. The ones who got us promoted, I honestly believe they deserve a chance in the Premier League and I’m sure they’ll cope with it admirably.
“But we will need to add some quality, some strength, some depth, some athleticism to the squad and hopefully that will stand us in good stead.”
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