Luton boss Rob Edwards says tomorrow’s crunch clash at home to Brentford is not a must-win match in their bid for Premier League survival.
The visit of the Bees is the first of five final games, including three at Kenilworth Road, where they’ll be hoping to pick up enough points to first haul themselves out of the relegation zone and then stay out of the bottom three.
Town are currently one point from safety and due to Nottingham Forest playing fellow relegation threatened Everton on Sunday, a win against Brentford would lift the Hatters above the Reds for at least 24 hours.
However, Edwards said: “Tomorrow, I don’t think it’s must-win, of course it’s not. It might get to that stage, but we recognise the importance of it. There’s no doubt about that now.
“It’s business time and we must be getting results. We put that pressure on the last home game (against Bournemouth) and we were able to produce a brilliant second half performance and a win.
“So, we know how important it is. It’s not must-win because it doesn’t mean we’re down if we don’t win tomorrow, but we all recognise the importance of it tomorrow.
“We’re not relegated if we don’t win.”
With three of their last five games at Kenilworth Road, fans on social media have been saying that Town need to win them to give themselves a chance of a great escape.
Edwards said: “It’s not necessarily going to go that way. Football’s quite funny. If we don’t win tomorrow we could go away and win at Wolves. We could do that.
“The pressure is on and we’ve spoken about the importance of the game. It’s not must-win because what if we don’t?
“Am I then going to explain to the lads, ‘flippin’ heck lads, I wasn’t telling the truth last week. It wasn’t must-win. This one’s against Wolves’.
“We all know the situation we’re in and every game now is important. We’re trying our best to win every single game.
“We tried our best against Manchester City and we’ll do exactly the same. We’ve had a really good week’s preparation.
“Of course it’s important, but it’s not must-win.”
