Danny Hylton jokes he’ll have no away fans to upset, but says Luton will have to create their own atmosphere when football returns in empty stadia on Saturday.
The Hatters will face Preston North End, three months after their last competitive fixture, due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Ongoing social distancing measures have dictated that fans will not return for the final nine games of the Championship season, meaning Town won’t have a braying Kenilworth Road crowd behind them.
Fan favourite Hylton has cultivated a persona as the player that rival supporters love to hate and asked about the prospect of not having that interaction, he said: “I’ve got no-one to wind up now, have I? I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Hylton scored in a 4-2 friendly win over Brentford yesterday and, as well as in-house games last week, the striker and his team-mates have had some chance to get used to an empty stadium.
Hylton said: “We love the fans, I’ve played at Luton when the fans are against you and it’s a horrible place.
“No doubt that’s a massive advantage for us on Saturday when we’ve got that behind us, but we’re not going to have that, so we’re going to have to create our own atmosphere.
“On the flip side, if you go to Elland Road, or other away games that we have, they’re not going to have their crowd.
“It can be intimidating going to Leeds in front of 30,000, but if they’ve got no fans, it doesn’t give them that edge over you, so it will definitely play into our hands.
“But we’d definitely like to play in front of our own fans, so on the flip side it could benefit us away from home when they haven’t got their fans.”
After a couple of serious knee injuries, Hylton has only featured in a total of 22 minutes this term under former boss Graeme Jones. But the hitman insists the return of manager Nathan Jones can give the Hatters a lift in the absence of supporters.
He said: “We’ve had a lift with the new manager who we’re familiar with, we’re all delighted he’s back. These little lifts and percentages here and there will hopefully give us the lift to go and do the job, finishing the season strongly achieve what we want to achieve, which is obviously staying up.”
Town only returned to full contact training this month after restrictions were relaxed but asked if that could pose a problem, Hylton said: “It’s the same for everyone, we came back to training as early as we were allowed, so I don’t think anyone will be ahead of us.
“Everyone’s going to be in the same boat, so we’re just going to have make sure, in a nine game season, it’s who can hit the ground running, who can start the fastest and who can get momentum and carry that on.
“So, we’re just going to have to go out there and forget everything, forget form, forget what’s happened previously, get out there and try to get our own momentum and keep that for nine games and I’m sure we’ll be OK.”
