Alarming Luton Town trend is not good news for Matt Bloomfield | OneFootball

Bloomfield has been unable to turn the Hatters' fortune around as they stare relegation to League One in the face

Luton Town were battling hard to stay up in the Premier League this time last year, but 12 months on, they look on course to suffer a successive relegation to League One, with recently-appointed manager Matt Bloomfield unable to stem the tide of their consistently poor performances.

The Hatters were widely tipped to be the best of the relegated teams in the Championship this season after they performed better than both Burnley and Sheffield United in the top flight and retained a number of their high-profile players in the summer transfer window.

Their reality has been far from those predictions, however, with the club currently sitting bottom of the second tier with 12 games left and staring down the barrel of a shock return to League One after six mostly successful years away.

Promotion-winning boss Rob Edwards was kept on after relegation in the summer but then sacked last month with Luton in 20th place following four straight defeats.

Wycombe Wanderers manager Matt Bloomfield was soon appointed as the man tasked with keeping them in the division this season, and while he has only been at the helm for a little over a month, he is still yet to pick up a win in charge of the Hatters, and it now looks increasingly likely that Kenilworth Road will host third-tier football once again in 2025/26.

Matt Bloomfield has not made the desired impact as Luton boss

Bloomfield's decision to jump ship from League One promotion-chasing Wycombe to relegation-threatened Luton last month certainly raised eyebrows throughout the EFL, but no one could begrudge him the move, given the likely pay rise and potential to be a Hatters hero if he keeps them up this season.

He would certainly have wanted to make a bigger impact on their form since his arrival up to now, however, as his Town tenure got underway with a pretty drab 0-0 draw against Preston North End on January 18.

His side travelled to Oxford United three days later but lost 3-2 after taking the lead twice in the first half through Tom Krauss and Mark McGuinness, then he soon suffered his first damaging defeat at Kenilworth Road as Mihailo Ivanovic's stunning strike sealed a 1-0 win for Millwall.

Bloomfield's second point in charge of the Hatters was picked up away at Sheffield Wednesday at the start of this month, with a 1-1 draw at Hillsborough, but then that was followed up with a 2-0 loss to Sunderland in which Luton barely even got a sight of goal with just one shot on target throughout the 90 minutes.

Arguably their most promising performance of the lot since Bloomfield's appointment was in the visit of Sheffield United on the weekend before last, but despite playing well, they squandered numerous chances to take the lead throughout the game and were beaten by a late Anel Ahmedhodzic strike.

Bloomfield described that performance as one with the "identity, the character and personality of a Luton team" but they have been unable to capitalise on that encouraging display as yet.

A crucial clash against relegation rivals Plymouth Argyle last week represented Bloomfield's best chance so far to take home his first three points as Hatters boss, but despite Jacob Brown nodding the hosts into a precious 1-0 lead, the Greens battled back to level and the spoils were shared on a night where both teams desperately needed a victory.

It would be unfair to blame the ex-Wycombe head coach for all of Luton's problems, as most of them clearly existed before his arrival, but he has done little in the way of improving their performances or results, and that fact was at its most evident on Sunday as Vicarage Road hosted the fiercely-contested M1 Derby between Watford and the Hatters.

Watford barely had to break a sweat to race into a 2-0 first-half lead through Tom Dele Bashiru's penalty and Edo Kayembe's close-range finish, and despite some Luton pressure as the game wore on, their efforts were futile and they eventually slipped to a fifth defeat in eight games since Bloomfield took over.

The Hatters continue to occupy 24th spot in the Championship table and have now been cut five points adrift of safety with just 12 'cup final' games left to preserve their Championship status for another season.

Matt Bloomfield has continued to back his side to improve and avoid relegation

Any derby-day defeat is a tough one to take, but as Watford players celebrated with boss Tom Cleverley at one end of the ground after their win lifted them to within three points of the top six, there could not have been a starker contrast at the other end, as Hatters supporters remonstrated and booed their own players off the pitch. It was a telling sign of the tough situation that Luton find themselves in right now.

Despite the setbacks since his arrival, Bloomfield has understandably remained positive and assured, when speaking publicly at least, and that was no different on Sunday as he insisted in his post-match interviews that his players are still up for the fight to stay in the Championship.

"We have to believe in that and I do believe in that. We saw in the second half that the boys are still fighting," he said, via The Independent.

“We were rocked in the first half, that was obvious, but the boys kept playing. They didn’t go under but, unfortunately, weren’t able to find the goal that would have got us back in the game.

“We have to keep working and keep improving. Generally, we are doing alright between the two boxes but games are won or lost in the penalty boxes and it’s not going our way.

“It has hurt us. We have to eradicate the errors at one end and start taking our chances at the other."

Bloomfield also moved to apologise to the Hatters fans that watched on in the away end at Vicarage Road, while again backing his players to "keep fighting" in an interview with Luton Today. Those quotes are to be expected though, following such a defeat, and the only way that they can fully put it right is by starting to win games to propel themselves up the table to safety.

The trouble for Luton now is that their fate is not completely in their own hands, due to the number of points they find themselves away from Cardiff City in 21st spot. They need to not only start to pick up wins but also hope that other teams do not.

It's alarming for both Bloomfield and the Hatters that the new boss is yet to win a game but they will look at the coming games with hope. They will play the Bluebirds in a few weeks' time and also face off against fellow strugglers Stoke City, Hull City and Derby County before the season is out. Those are the games that they need to take three points from, or League One football next season is almost a guarantee.