The great escape turned into the great depression as Luton were thumped by a rampant West Bromwich Albion and relegated for a second successive season on a nightmare final day of a disastrous Championship campaign.
Needing to win to guarantee safety or to at least match Hull City’s score at Portsmouth, the Hatters got stage fright while reviving their leaky defence of three months ago to ship three goals in a shock first half at The Hawthorns. Two months of impressive performances and results – which handed Luton a lifeline – extinguished. They saved the worst for last.
Millenic Alli equalised two minutes after the Baggies took lead as keeper Thomas Kaminski couldn’t keep out Tom Fellows’ shot, but that brief hope faded as Daryl Dike was gifted the freedom of the Black Country to head home his first goal in two years. And when Fellows added another, it was effectively game over by the half time interval and all eyes on Fratton Park, where Hull had a 1-0 lead.
But rather than rescue the situation, Luton crumbled as Callum Styles bagged a four-minute double to make it 5-2. Jordan Clark pulled back a consolation, as did Alli with his second late on.
And before Clark’s goal, Portsmouth equalised against Hull and the travelling Luton fans, shellshocked by what they had witnessed, momentarily broke out into Portsmouth’s famous “play up Pompey” chant. But the score did not change on the south coast and it confirmed the Hatters’ sinking feeling.
Final whistle boos from the away end were only punctuated by chants of “you’re not fit to wear the shirt” and it will now be a long, hard summer of reflection on how a side that were predicted to be challenging for promotion straight back to the Premier League will now have to prepare for life in England’s third tier for the first time since 2019.
Summing up his emotions, manager Matt Bloomfield, said: “Disappointment, frustration, it’s a particularly painful moment for us and everyone associated with our football club, really disappointing performance considering the day and the performance that we needed to get ourselves out of where we were.
“So, [it’s] particularly painful. Sorry to our supporters for travelling up and down the country supporting us this season, and we understand their disappointment and anger right now.”
He added: “The goals we gave away were so disappointing, we’ve been incredibly resilient in the last few months to really shore up at the back and unfortunately today it just wasn’t there, so we need to analyse that and find out why, because it has been on show for two months. We spoke about the defensive resilience that we’ve had, but today it wasn’t good enough.”
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