Sweet: Nathan Jones will be a 'hard act' to follow for new Luton manager

Hatters chief executive Gary Sweet knows that whoever is appointed as new Luton manager will have a ‘hard act’ to follow in succeeding former boss Nathan Jones.

The 49-year-old left Kenilworth Road yesterday to join Premier League side Southampton, leaving behind him a Town squad sitting ninth in the Championship table, just two points adrift of the top six.

Since returning to Bedfordshire in May 2020, Jones’ second stint in charge, like his first, has been nothing short of a success, as after keeping the club in the second tier against all the odds, the former Brighton and Yeovil defender, who was the third longest serving manager in the club’s history, stabilised Luton to finish 12th and then improved on that even further by reaching the play-offs last term.

Describing his time in charge, Sweet said: “Wonderful, over 300 games, win percentage of knocking on the door of half of those, it’s a fantastic record.

“Without putting any pressure on the next manager coming in, it’s a hard act to follow.

“It’s the end of an era, and he goes absolutely with our best wishes.”

With news breaking on Monday morning that Jones had been installed as the bookies favourite to take over at St Mary's following the sacking of Ralph Hasenhüttl after the 4-1 home defeat to Newcastle United at the weekend, Town responded by confirming they had given the long-serving manager permission to speak to the Saints, but only after Tuesday night’s trip to Stoke City had been completed.

Discussing the events of the week, Sweet continued: “We’ve been quite transparent with the proceedings.

“Clearly we knew a little bit before we made the announcement at the beginning of the week, we had the weekend with that knowledge, always with these things because they’re private and Nathan wanted to have a private conversation with Southampton about that position, we wanted to keep some stability and keep it out of the press.

“But there were some leaks on the south coast unfortunately, so we had to respond and let people know that we had given him permission to talk to Southampton.

“We arranged for that to be on the Wednesday as you’re thick into a preparation for a game.

"We had a good chat with the players, they were okay with that and there was a good chance from the Wednesday that things wouldn’t necessarily be resolved and he would be back taking Saturday's game as well.

“So we didn’t really have too much of a choice on the Tuesday, frankly on the Tuesday, right until Thursday midnight, Nathan was a Luton Town employee.

“But actually, we all felt, Mick (Harford, chief recruitment officer) and everyone here, that everyone was up for the Tuesday game and that’s not what lost us it unfortunately, but it is what it is.”

Although Town then went on to suffer a disappointing 2-0 reverse at the Bet365 Stadium in midweek, Sweet felt that with the international break for the World Cup coming up following Saturday’s game against Rotherham at Kenilworth Road, that will be taken by interim manager Harford, it was in fact an ideal moment for the club to be searching for a new man to take them forward.

He added: “I think the timing is really good for us and I would like to just say, Southampton, whilst they have known that they have wanted to take Nathan for some time, he was their top candidate, they respectfully chose the right time to do that, because it then gave everyone a week to sort things out and then we’ve got a month of preparation to restart the season.

“So it’s a really good time for us, a good time for them as well as a good time for Nathan and it gives this big man here (Harford) a good game to take on Saturday.

“So we’ve got no real grumbles, from the outside world, supporters, they can rest assured that everything’s been handled very professionally.

“I was going to say amicably, in these things between the two clubs there's always going it a bit of negotiations shall we say, but we've actually got on really well with Southampton.

“It’s a decent club, so I couldn't really be more satisfied with the way it's all gone, despite the fact that sometimes when it gets out to the public domain, there's lots of rumours that get out and people assume things that frankly aren't true.

"I think that many might think that we lost the game on Tuesday because Nathan took it, but that's certainly not the case, we lost the game because we weren’t as good as Stoke.”