Edwards: It might sound stupid but I want Luton to be mixing it with the top teams one day

Although it might sound crazy given the fact that Luton are currently fighting for their Premier League survival, Hatters boss Rob Edwards has set his sights on one day mixing it with teams like Manchester United on a regular basis ahead of this afternoon’s clash at Kenilworth Road.

It may be some time before Town get to that stage, as the first item on the tick list is to remain in the same division as their opponents, that by no means a gimme, Luton sitting fourth bottom in the table, only one point keeping them out of the relegation zone at the moment. Although this season was always destined to be a battle to stay up, speaking this week, Edwards made it clear he has loftier ambitions than being a club whose ambitions are solely to stay in the top flight every, as he said: “We’ve got to keep working hard, our aim long term, as stupid as this might sounds, is to try and be mixing it with those big, big teams.

“We don’t want to be relying on points deductions, we don't want to be relying on other things that are outside of our control, so our aim is to get as many points as we can and then see where that takes us. We don’t want to be just accepting that, right let's just stay here and that’s going to be us, third, fourth bottom, we don't want that to be the case. We want to aim for as many points as we can. I want the lads to fly and flourish at this level and at times they've shown they’re capable of doing that, but we’ve got to keep doing that consistently.”

One thing that Town have in their favour in their battle to stay up is their ability to find the net this term, scoring 33 goals from their 23 games, putting them level with Erik ten Hag’s Red Devils side, who have played one match more. However the Old Trafford club have only shipped 33 at the other end, compared to Luton's 45, as on their parity when it comes to hitting the target, Edwards added: “That’s good, but we’ve probably let in a few more haven’t we, so it’s not all that good.

“I think we’ve done well in certain areas, but we know we’ve got to keep improving and working hard as well to keep the back door shut. We know we’re a threat, we can score goals and we’re going to be coming up against World Cup winners, top, top players as well. We'll continue to work really hard and doing what we do to create chances.

“Stats will show that we’ve been fairly ruthless with the chances we created, so I want us to be creating more and more big chances as well. It’s not all perfect, we’re still a work in progress and we’ve got a lot of areas we can keep improving, but that does give us confidence. It’s good that we can score goals, as we’ve got no chance of winning games if you can’t.”