Top three the only acceptable outcome for Hatters boss

Luton topped the table when the season was in its infancy, but have fallen behind leaders Plymouth in recent weeks.

Going into tomorrow’s game at Blackpool, the Hatters are nine points away from the summit, and seven from the automatic spots, but asked whether he would be satisfied in making sure they remain in the play-off places, Jones said: “No, it’s catch the top three. We don’t want to stay in the play-offs, we want to catch the top three.

“We have a goal here this year and we’ve been in the top five since day one, I don’t think we’ve come out of there.

“Our performances have merited a few more points than we’ve got.

“There’s a good pace been set by the top six or seven, so yes, we want to be in and around it, but we want to be in the top three.”

Jones is still looking to catch leaders Plymouth who returned to first place after beating Doncaster Rovers last weekend to end a run of three straight defeats.

The Luton chief added: “Basically, we want to be top.

“There’s only 20 games gone, so we’re 26 games to go and we’re looking forward to every one of those games.

“We believe we’ll be strong second half of the season because of how we train and the squad we have, so it’s important we stay in there.

“But we want to impact them because the quicker we can catch them, hopefully the quicker we can overtake them.

“We go to win every single game, we’re never negative, it’s been to our detriment and to our favour.

“We’re in good form, we’re a difficult side to beat, we have a good structure to us, we know the plan we have.

“Everything we do is not sporadic or luck, there’s a structure and we stick to that structure. If we are a little bit more clinical then we believe we’ll pick up more points.”