Sonny Bradley wants to go on an FA Cup run to give Luton fans the big game experience they missed out on last season due to the Covid shutout of supporters.
Town drew Manchester United at home in the Carabao Cup and then Chelsea away in the FA Cup last term, but supporters couldn’t savour the ties because football in England was played behind closed doors all last term.
Luton were hit by coronavirus, with a spate of positive tests on Christmas Day wiping out their festive fixtures, meaning they last played on December 11 when the drew against Championship promotion hopefuls Fulham.
They return to action on Sunday when they host League Two Harrogate Town in the third round of the FA Cup – the first of six matches this month.
But the fixture pile-up doesn’t worry Bradley, who is focused first on avoiding a cup shock, so that Luton have a shot at drawing a glamour tie in the fourth round.
“The current situation, with the amount of games we’ve got to play, to us, we don’t see that as a negative at all,” the central defender said.
“We want to go on a cup run. We want to get drawn against some of the biggest clubs in England and give it a go.
“At first, we’ve got to beat Harrogate. We’re not looking past it. We have to approach it in the right manner if we want to win the game. If we do do that, then we can hope we get a big team of another team that we feel are really beatable, to go on a cup run.
“We’ve played against big clubs last season, in Chelsea and Manchester United, obviously, in different cups, but the fans weren’t there.
“I know we’ve spoken about this. It was incredibly frustrating. We didn’t get the full experience. We got the experience of playing at Stamford Bridge and playing against a Manchester United squad at home, but the fans missed out on it.
“They had to watch it at home, so I’m sure the fans would agree with me that they want to go on a good cup run. Let’s try to beat Harrogate and then let’s try to get one of the big teams, either away, or at home, preferably away, to give the fans a proper day out, like they deserve.”
Bradley had a loan spell at Harrogate 12 years ago, under the same manager Simon Weaver, who’s been there since 2009, so the 30-year-old has some small experience of what to expect from the Yorkshire side. And he knows that they can’t be taken lightly after they knocked out Portsmouth in the previous round in dramatic late fashion.
“I would say they’ve got nothing to lose but then they have their place in the cup to lose. They will be thinking about that,” said Bradley.
“There’s no reason why they shouldn’t play on the front foot and go at us. It will be a difficult game and depending on how we approach the game, with our attitude and mentality, we can either make it easy or hard for ourselves.
“There’s no replays so it will have to be done in the 90 minutes. We will try and get out there and show the fans who are eager to get back in the grounds, we owe them a nice comeback and hopefully we can keep a clean sheet and score a few goals.”
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