Nathan Jones says nothing needs to change as Luton face an eight-game season finale to cement their promotion status, because his men are already “bang on track”.
Town have sat in third place in the Championship for the two-week international break and with a four-point cushion between them and the play-off chasing pack.
Millwall are one of those teams and they come to Kenilworth Road on Saturday, with Town aiming to pick up where they left off, having claimed the most amount of points this calendar year, other than runaway leaders Fulham.
But while many are viewing Luton as the surprise package in the promotion race, Jones insists his men are merely living up to their potential.
“What we’re saying to the players is that we’re in exactly the position we believed we could be,” said the manager.
“We did certain things, certain statistics at the beginning of the season, when we had a meeting in pre-season, that if we had this much goal difference, this many clean sheets, had this many points over a five-game block then we will end up here.
“If we do exactly the same as we did last year, we had seven points over every five game block and we finished top half. If that goes up to eight, it’s top ten, slightly more then that’s where you finish.
“We’re bang on track. We’re not saying to them, ‘if you do this, this will happen’. We’re on track, change nothing, continue to do what we do and let’s see where it takes us.”
Asked what it will take for Town to get over the line and at least confirm their place in the play-offs, Jones said: “What we’re saying is, there is no line there. It’s unknown, we have to keep going now, if you reach a certain points total you are guaranteed to finish in a certain position and that’s all we can do.
“Let’s just see where we can go from there but we’re preparing for Millwall because that’s the next game and the most difficult one. Ironically it is one of the most difficult games we have left this season anyway.”
Luton have used the two-week international break to help ease their injury problems, which saw them finish the last two games before the break with no recognised centre halves.
However, Jones was keeping his cards close to his chest as to who would be available, though club captain Sonny Bradley has been pictured back on the training pitch, having not featured for the last two months.
“We will see (who’s fit), said Jones, adding: “We’re in a better position than we were two weeks ago, which isn’t very hard because we were in a really stretched position. We’re in a better position so let’s see.
“We were at full stretch, especially defensively and people were putting in big shifts, we didn’t start with a recognised centre-half against Hull, and we didn’t finish with one against Preston.”
Midfielder Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu was one Hatter that went on international duty, travelling with DR Congo, but didn’t win a cap as the African side failed to qualify for the World Cup.
Jones said: “For me it was good news, for him it wasn’t. To travel all that way and not be involved is frustrating for me but he’s come back fully fit, trained perfectly so that’s the positive with that.”
He added: “A few have gone away with internationals, some have been able to get a bit more training in their legs, some have had the rest they needed, it has come at a good time. We have no idea how that is going to affect momentum but Millwall are in good form as well so it’s not like it’s going to damage us more than it is them.”
