It’s a rare week, as a lower league club, to prepare for a cup clash against Manchester United and for it to be seen by supporters as a stepping stone to an even bigger game – but this is the situation facing Luton.
Town will host the Premier League giants in the third round of the Carabao Cup tonight, 28 years after their last meeting, with hopes, rather than expectations of a giant-killing, even after a perfect start to the season.
Instead, it seems set to serve merely as an appetiser to whet the appetite for Saturday’s main Championship course which, for fans at least, will end of a 14-year wait to revive hostilities with Watford.
Town manager Nathan Jones says he’s solely concentrating on his first ever meeting with Manchester United, as a player, coach or manager, and though he wants a three-win week, he understands why the weekend’s trip means more to fans, even though they won’t be inside Vicarage Road.
“If you could pick two wins out of the three, I know which two we would pick, so, yeah, there is an element of realism in it,” the Hatters boss said.
Mancunian midfielder Ryan Tunnicliffe will be hoping for the chance to face-off against his boyhood club and a familiar face in Paul Pogba, but even he concedes that the Hatters faithful will have one eye on the weekend.
“It’s a strange one,” he said, adding of tonight’s cup tie: “Obviously, it’s a massive game, but the fans have not had Watford in the league for a long time, so I’m sure they’ll be looking forward to that one a bit more, with local bragging rights, but it’s a massive week for the club.
“It’s two absolutely massive games, and that’s why the club worked so hard to get in this league and kick on, to play these massive games.”
There will be some younger sections of the Town support that have never known contests against Manchester United or Watford. Indeed, this time nine years ago, Luton were leading the Conference, which highlights how far Luton have had to come to return to fixtures that were once regular occurrences.
“It’s brilliant and we’re really proud,” said Jones, adding: “It’s been a journey in the making since 2020 took over, coming back from non-league and solving problems at the club, the debts and so on. Then, getting back into the league, with a great job done by the then previous manager John Still, and then the work that we carried on.
“Everyone’s had a part to play in that but these are the weeks that we always envisaged. Now, look, we’d actually like them to be every week and not just one special week.
“Whether you play Bournemouth, Reading, Watford or Norwich, these are all Premier League teams. They are big, big games week in, week out and that’s what we want to be.
“Without being disrespectful, when we were in League Two, and some of the places we went to, they were great for us, but there was always that goal of playing in big stadia, testing ourselves and being pushed to the limit. We are like that now, so it’s a great week.
“Man United and Watford as the next two games. We are solely concentrating on Man United, but there’s always that one to come next. It’s a big week, a testing week, a tough week, but one you have to relish.”
Jones will be expected to rotate his squad, as he did for the League Cup second round win at Reading, and he said of the Manchester United match: “We will have to utilise the squad in whatever capacity, game-changers, everything.
“It’s going to be a wonderful game, we’re going to have to be really good to come through the tie, we know that. Then it’s into the biggest league game for this club, for the people, for the fans, as a derby game.
“We have waited a long time for these games and we’re very pleased we have them because we said to them (the players) when we went to Hull and Huddersfield last season, ‘It’s up to you. We come to these grounds week in, week out, next year or do you want to go to certain other sides?’, We won’t name names.
“To have Man United coming here and going to Watford is a massive thing and that’s why we wanted to get to this level, to remain at this level and to be really competitive at this level.”
