Nathan Jones makes Barnsley claim as Luton Town gear up for next season in the Championship | OneFootball

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Football League World

·26 May 2022

Nathan Jones makes Barnsley claim as Luton Town gear up for next season in the Championship

Article image:Nathan Jones makes Barnsley claim as Luton Town gear up for next season in the Championship

The Hatters were unlucky to lose against Huddersfield Town in the semi-finals and now they are looking towards another season in the Championship, but will be hoping that they can build upon what they’ve done this season and push up the league.

However, this is not a given. One only has to look at Barnsley to see how a missed promotion opportunity can turn out.


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After staying up on the final day in the 2019/20 season, the Tykes then went on to have a great campaign making it to the play-offs being beaten by Swansea in the play-offs.

However, this season they have struggled again and found themselves relegated to League One after finishing at the bottom of the table.

However, Hatters boss Nathan Jones has insisted his side will not follow this pattern as he told Luton Today: “With the greatest of respect, that’s not going to happen to us.

“We want to be better next year, we want to evolve again next year, not go categorically backwards.

“Whatever that was, maybe because Barnsley lost a manager that changed drastically their formation or style of play, I don’t know.

“That’s not going to happen at this football club.”

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Article image:Nathan Jones makes Barnsley claim as Luton Town gear up for next season in the Championship

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Thankfully for Luton, the trend since Jones has been with Luton backs them to do well as they have improved year on year and Jones was keen to look back on their progress as he said: “We’ve evolved every year that we’ve been here.

“When we got to the play-off semi-final in League Two, we set a goal of automatic promotion the next year, because it was logical.

“If you finish fourth, get to the play-offs, and narrowly miss out and think, right, if we do good work, continue that and develop and recruit better, then you should achieve more the next year, and we did that.

“Because we had two years in League Two, we believed we’d assembled a squad and then signed two big characters in Matty Pearson and Sonny Bradley and we believed we had enough in the building to go again, and we did that.

“The first year [in the Championship] was about consolidating, which we did.

“Then it was about establishing, evolving slightly more and recruiting differently. We did.

“Then we though, if we could get this summer right, the players saw what came in and thought we can.

“We push boundaries with them, ask them to be bold and set bold targets, because we believe that.

“There’s no point us saying, we’re going to win the league by ten points because ultimately, if you’re never in touch, or never above Fulham, who are a fantastic football side, then it becomes unrealistic.”

The Verdict:

The job Nathan Jones has done with Luton is outstanding, not just this season, but at every year he’s been with the club.

The fact the team have improved every year under his management is credit to how well he has done there and what he has built at the club and he will be looking for that to continue.

However, he is also really keen to keep his targets realistic knowing his budget is smaller than a lot of other teams in the league and therefore these targets have to be measured and achievable.

Of course anything could happen when you look at Barnsley’s downfall but with Jones hoping to keep some continuity at the club, you wouldn’t expect to see them do the same.

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