‘I might still be in shock’ that I’ll be playing Man City and Man Utd, says Doughty

Alfie Doughty says he may still be shock after winning promotion to the Premier League in a stellar season that cast aside old injury woes. 

The wing back signed for Luton last summer from Stoke City after an suffering three years of setbacks that delayed his debut until October.

But once in he became a mainstay of the side and his 35 appearances are only the second time in his career he’s broke the 30-game barrier in a season. 

And in the Championship play-off final victory against Coventry it was Doughty that started off the move that ends in Jordan Clark’s opener, with a searching ball to Elijah Adebayo. 

Cramp meant the 23-year-old was withdrawn before the penalty shootout which he “hated every second of” but that the Hatters won 6-5 to return to the top flight after a 31-year absence.  

Doughty said: “I’m still kind of processing it really, I’ve never been involved in something like this. 

“Obviously, when you were younger and battling for stuff, but this is just on another level.

“For someone like me suffering so much recently with injuries and not playing, to do this, this season, I can’t put it into words really.

“You don’t know actually how to put it into words, I might still be in shock that next year I’m going to be playing at the Etihad, Old Trafford, so, for that itself, it just gives you chills.”

And coming from Stoke and Charlton, with a loan spell at Cardiff, Doughty has found his home with the Hatters. 

He said: “I’ve been in a few groups and there’s always some sort of animosity somewhere, or whatever, but this group it is just all love and that’s probably about 75 per cent of the reason we got promoted this year as we’re a team.

“We actually love it, we love each other and we’ve got to do it.”

“It’s quite funny really, but Premier League is another level, but I go back to this team and what we’re capable of and, as a whole, this is what we do.”

Other than runaway champions Burnley’s 48 points no other side picked up more second-tier points than Luton (44) in the calendar year of 2023, which saw them push Sheffield United all the way for the second automatic promotion spot, even beating the Blades at Bramall Lane. 

“You’ve always got to set goals and this (promotion) was one of them, for sure, for this club.

“I think we more than achieved this year and I personally believe we could have actually got automatic.

“If you look back at some of the games we drew and lost, we did well, but at Wembley, you can’t really beat it can you? 

“Wembley, the final, what an occasion.”