Exclusive: Don Goodman defends Luton Town's Matt Bloomfield gamble | OneFootball

Don Goodman believes the next three games will tell whether Matt Bloomfield was the correct appointment at Kenilworth Road.

Pundit Don Goodman has defended Matt Bloomfield’s poor record since taking the Luton Town hotseat, believing the next three games will show whether he was the right appointment.

The most startling development in the Football League this season has undoubtedly been Luton's dramatic decline.

Just two years on from their fairy-tale promotion to the Premier League, the Hatters now face the unprecedented prospect of back-to-back relegations down to third-tier, with Luton fans watching such a disastrous campaign unravel.

Luton were expected to be challenging towards the top end of the Championship after falling back down to the second tier, with retaining the likes of Carlton Morris, Elijah Adebayo and Alfie Doughty seen as a positive result last summer.

But now the Hatters are teetering on the edge of League One football and have eight games to save their season under Matt Bloomfield, following the departure of Rob Edwards.

Since being appointed Luton boss, Bloomfield has won just two of his opening 12 Championship outings, with questions being raised over whether a more experienced manager was needed to guide the Hatters to safety.

Don Goodman has weighed in with his thoughts on the situation, and whether Bloomfield can turn the tide in Bedfordshire.

Don Goodman defends Matt Bloomfield over poor run of form

Speaking exclusively to Football League World, Don Goodman believes the lack of impact of Bloomfield on the Luton team isn’t his fault, but believes the next three games will decide whether it was the right decision to bring the former Wycombe Wanderers boss to Kenilworth Road.

Goodman said: “In terms of whether Luton should have looked for a more experienced manager, it’s always a gamble. Whoever you appoint as a club, whether they’re established, have experience or even if you go a bit left field, it’s always a gamble.

“It’s been tough at Luton, Matt Bloomfield inherited a team that was playing awfully low on confidence, not scoring enough goals at one end and conceding too many at the other, so for him to only win two from 12, is it a surprise? Probably not. Is it his fault? I’m not sure about that either, but there is still a fighting chance for Luton to survive.

“They’ve got a huge game away at Hull City, following up with Leeds, and then they have Stoke City away, so I would say within the next three games, we’ll probably have a better idea to that question.”

Luton Town should have appointed a more experienced manager for relegation dogfight

While Rob Edwards’s stint at Luton had become stagnant, the Hatters have followed a similar mold in appointing Bloomfield, who is a promising and up-and-coming young coach.

Luton clearly have a vision in mind for the type of manager they want to appoint, but there’s no doubt consecutive relegations will have a detrimental effect on the playing squad and the finances of the club.

The Hatters must do everything in their power to prevent relegation from happening, and they should have made appointing an older and more experienced head a priority to help retain their Championship status.

They could have acted quicker to relieve Edwards back at the turn of the year and bring in someone of the ilk of Gary Rowett, who had moved a fortnight earlier to Oxford United and has managed over 350 games in the Championship.

Meanwhile, Neil Warnock could have been tempted back into management on a short-term deal to keep the club up, with Luton then focusing on appointing someone like Bloomfield to move them back up to the upper end of the Championship table next season.

This is a time when Luton needed stability and a positive impact with an established Championship manager at the helm to ease the relegation anxiety, and this kind of decision could end up costing them their place in the second tier come May.