Jones only bothered about the Hatters during Championship relegation run-in

Hatters boss Nathan Jones remained unconcerned about matters elsewhere as he attempts to plot Town’s route to Championship survival over the final eight games of the campaign.

Luton closed the gap to safety last week as Callum McManaman’s late equaliser in a 1-1 draw with Preston, coupled with Middlesbrough’s 3-0 home defeat to Swansea, saw them trail fourth bottom by five points.

However, Town dropped to the foot of the table with Barnsley beating QPR, and fell further behind Charlton and Wigan, who won against fellow relegation rivals Hull and Huddersfield.

It matters not to Jones though if his side don’t pick up the number of points he is requiring, as he said: “We don’t worry about anyone else, we can’t.

"There were positive results and negative results, but for us, we have to get to a points total.

"If we don’t get to that points total we won’t have a chance of survival, so it’s not about what other people do, it’s about what we do.

“It was a positive point as we’re one point closer to our total, we’re one point better off in terms of the relegation zone.

"So what we have to do is make sure that we gather momentum, we keep improving, keep getting better and then picking up enough points to keep us in the division.

“Now as long as we get them, I don’t care where they come from, and that was a positive point.

“After being 10 weeks without a game, then just three weeks minimal training, having to build them up, we were only able to do one 45 minute game, we lacked sharpness, that was clear for everyone to see.

"We lacked a bit of fluency, but they gave me everything and it was a positive point against a few good Preston side, because they are a good side.”

After being appointed in late May, Jones only had three and a half weeks to work with the squad that he already knew fairly well, having signed a number of them, prior to the game last weekend,

On whether he had learned more about them following the performance, Jones continued: “You have to take that game in isolation.

“We looked solid, we looked hard working, we had a real solidity about us.

“We’re disappointed with the goal and then obviously we will take all the positives from our attacking play.

“On another day we might have nicked the game.

“Preston were better than us, a bit more fluent than us, but they’ve been together a little bit longer.

"Their manager obviously had them throughout the duration of lockdown, so on and so forth.

“They were probably ahead of us in game time and sharpness so what it told me was that if I can get my side right, then they’re all ready to implement that, which they will do to the best of their ability.

"So I know I’ve got a good, honest, hard working group.

“We have certain talents, we have to get better, we have to get more fluent in our play but that’s stuff we work on religiously, so that will come.

“What it told me was we’re in a certain place.

"We need to gather momentum a little bit more but that was a positive point.

"I’m not trying to say we were brilliant in any way, shape or form because we’ve had games when I’ve been manager here where we’ve been scintillating.

“We were nowhere near that level but this is a different level and we have just come out of 14 weeks near enough of not playing football, so to judge them on one game would be silly.

“What I know is the group I left are hard-working, honest, talented and the group I returned to are exactly the same.”

The main highlight for Jones during the 90 minutes against the play-off chasing Lilywhites was defensively, as he added: "I thought we were excellent without the ball.

"We worked hard, we were solid and we restricted a very good Preston side to shots from distance.

There was one ricochet where (Simon) Sluga had to earn his corn, but I thought we were very solid.

The goal was very avoidable, we’re disappointed with that but I thought we didn’t impose ourselves on the game. Normally, we like to do that.

It’s not for the want of trying because we had a good group, but it’s just a few little things we could have done better, structurally.

"We could’ve been braver but we’re still gathering momentum because they’ve not played a competitive match, probably for 14 weeks.

"If you haven’t done something for 14 weeks, apart from riding a bike, you’re not just going to click straight back into it, so that’s going to take a bit of time."