Luton chief praises 2020 for their help during an 'excellent' transfer window

Luton chief Nathan Jones was eager to thank the Hatters board for their help during a transfer window that he described as ‘excellent.'

Town did two bits of business on deadline day, bringing in Tom Ince from Stoke City and also Walsall striker Elijah Adebayo on a permanent deal for an undisclosed fee as well.

That made it three new additions in total, with Kal Naismith arriving on a free transfer earlier in the month, as on the help from owners 2020, particularly with funds extremely tight due to the current coronavirus pandemic leading to no match-day income boosting the coffers, Jones said: “It is huge, but everything is within budget and everything is sensible because we know that we do that.

“We’re very well run and Gary (Sweet, chief executive) does an unbelievable job and the board, if we ask for something.

“We’ve used a lot of adjectives and certain things, in terms of ‘well, we haven’t asked for a kangaroo’, we don’t.

“We ask for sensible stuff here and we always have to justify it, but in the past our record has been decent in terms of that.

“For the business that the club does, in terms of JJ (James Justin), Jack Stacey, that helps, because the money we get for those the club reinvests.

“To be fair to the board, it’s not like we’d sell Jack for a pound and we’re all taking 20p each, they don’t do that here.

“It all gets reinvested and that’s why we’ve got such a great board.

“We have a group chat and I thanked the board for the processes because there are processes in place at our club if we want to go for certain stuff and, look, sometimes we take a calculated gamble, but they’re quite prepared to do it.

“Not everything comes off, especially in January windows, because it’s a difficult one, but they’re an excellent board and we’ve got a fantastic chief exec that sees it.

“To be fair, Gary likes to get involved in that side, so when we identify someone he takes it over and he’s very good at what he does there, so we’re very thankful.

“Under no circumstances are we splashing cash and being frivolous because we understand, one, the position we’re in and, two, the finances at this football club don’t allow us to do that.

"We’re quite comfortable with that, but when something comes available then we have no problem of going for it.”

With the three new additions and not losing any players they had wanted to keep hold of, barring a number of loan deals, Jones reflected on the window by adding: “For us it’s been excellent.

“We brought in two permanent signings that we feel will be very good in different ways for us.

“Then we’ve added quality to the team and the squad, bringing Tom in, so we feel it’s been excellent.

“Obviously, Elliot, we’ve loaned out, but then we’ve got a load of younger players out, in terms of Peter Kioso, Josh Neufville, Gabby Osho, who are getting valuable game time which will add to their value.

“We feel it’s been a very good window, in terms of that productive week.

"We didn’t want to do too much business, but Kal (Naismith) was essential because we lost Rhys (Norrington-Davies), Tom became available and Elijah was one we would’ve done in the summer, but there became an opportunity to do now.”