Nathan Jones has admitted that if Luton do not take points off relegation rivals Barnsley and Huddersfield this this that it could seal their Championship fate.
Town’s promising restart came crashing down on Saturday when they were hammered 5-0 at home by Reading, after taking five points from three promotion-chasing teams before then to provide hope of a great escape.
Propping up the division, Town are now five points off the pace ahead of two do or die clashes, starting with second-from-bottom Barnsley travelling to Kenilworth Road on Tuesday.
“It’s as big a week as the football club’s had in a long time,” said manager Jones, adding: “It’s a massive week, two massive games coming up that we have to take points from because, if we don’t, then our fate could be sealed.”
Jones put Saturday’s lacklustre performance down to fatigue and asked what he can do to improve that with just a three-day turnaround, he said: “There’s a lot of things you could do. You could get them in to recover or give them the day off to make sure they’re mentally relaxed. It’s mental now as well. They’ll be hurting, physically but also mentally.
“We need to pick a team on Tuesday that will be able to go again and to get that win.”
The mental aspect for Town will be to recover from five-goal drubbing and the manager admitted: “I’m surprised by the scoreline. The performance is surprising, but it’s understandable.
“To concede five is out of the ordinary. I didn’t want it to be any more. I didn’t want it to be a Brentford, like the had earlier on, so we had to make sure we made changes for that. But, yeah, it’s surprising.
“But, it’s out of the ordinary so we have to make sure that doesn’t happen again and that we are ready for Tuesday, because Tuesday is a massive game.
“We can’t dwell on this now, we have to move forward and look to Tuesday’s game.”
