Looking back, going forward: re-examining Luton Town’s first season back in the Championship

The new Championship season is just a couple of weeks away and it is fair to say that anyone following an EFL club is eagerly awaiting the return to action.

I’d argue that could particularly be the case for Luton Town fans. Not only did the club enjoy a late season great escape, masterminded by the returning Nathan Jones, the financial headwinds affecting much of the EFL may help the tightly run club compete more effectively this coming season.

But where, realistically, should the club’s fans be setting their expectations? This is pretty tricky to say right now. The combination of a truncated pre-season and the potential impact (both positive and negative) of a lengthy transfer window does leave a lot of uncertainty.

So to try to get a picture of where Luton need to be going, I decided to take a look at the club’s performance over the course of the entire 2019/2020 season. This meant diving deep into one of the best sources of EFL data -Experimental 3–6–1’s end of season Championship round up — to try to work out where Hatters fans should be setting expectations.

In terms of the general picture from last season, it could be argued that Town fans should be bracing themselves for relegation. But when we look a little closer, the effect Nathan Jones has had upon his return to the club suggests that those aspirations could — as alluded to earlier — be set a little higher.

2019/2020 — a worrying big picture?

Speaking as a Luton Town fan and someone who naturally wants to think the absolute best of the club, the overall picture that the data paints of the club’s performance last season was not a pretty one.

Defensively, Luton Town were one of the worst — if not the worst — sides in the division. The team’s concession of 82 goals in 46 matches (1.78 per game) was noticeably poor, with only Hull (87) worse and the likes of QPR and Birmingham in the vicinity (76 and 75).

An obvious sign of this is Luton’s performance in terms of defensive effectiveness. Measured against shots faced per match and shots per goal conceded, Luton, again, were lucky to be spared the metaphorical wooden spoon by Hull City’s incompetence.

However, while Luton’s defence was definitely the major cause for concern throughout 2019/2020, the side’s attacking output was also comparatively weak despite their free scoring promotion campaign in 2018/2019.

The Hatters scored 54 goals last season at a rate of 1.17 per game, the sixth lowest total in the league. And one of the principal reasons for this was that Luton simply didn’t take many shots, averaging 9–10 per match.

As a result, Luton managed to achieve the unwanted double of being occupied extensively with defensive work while also failing to generate much attacking output to counter balance it.

It perhaps isn’t a surprise that, when we look at how Luton Town performed in terms of expected goals (XG) for and against, the side’s final finishing position of 19th emerges as a fortunate one — with Experimental 3–6–1 suggesting a finish of 22nd (prior to Wigan’s point deduction) and relegation may have been an expected outcome.

Overcoming the odds — the Nathan Jones effect

But as we know, the Town did avoid the drop in the end. So what happened to allow the club to buck expectations set reasonably low by comparatively poor defensive and attacking output?

First, and on a broader level supported by overarching analysis, Luton were fortunate to have a comparatively clinical frontline over the course of the lengthy season.

While the side may not have averaged many shots per match compared to its Championship rivals, the number of shots taken per goal aligns healthily with that figure. This meant that when Luton were attacking they were quite effective — even if it wasn’t as regular as one would like.

This is further borne out by the individual performance of the forwards within Luton’s attacking unit.

James Collins and Harry Cornick both scored at a rate that was slightly better than the XG of their shots. This supports the idea that the side made sure that their relatively few chances counted (even if we must acknowledge that six of Collins’s 14 goals came from the penalty spot).

But the second reason that Luton stayed up is something that data examined over the course of the season can’t fully adjust for: the Nathan Jones effect.

In his nine games in charge of the Hatters, Jones’ side picked up 16 points out of a possible 27 and accrued nearly a third of Luton’s points in a sixth of the season’s figures.

And the reason for this shift was a noticeable improvement in the side’s fortunes at both ends of the pitch, bucking trends established throughout the majority of Luton’s season.

There was a gentle uplift in Luton’s attacking output under Jones. The side scored at a rate of 1.22 goals per game (11 overall), a record that improved upon an average of 1.1 goals per game during Graeme Jones’ time in charge of the side.

But the real upgrade came at the back. Luton conceded 12 goals after lockdown at a rate of 1.33 per game. In comparison, the side were conceding an average of nearly 1.79 goals per game under the previous management.

This improvement resulted in three clean sheets in the first nine games under Nathan Jones, which accounted for nearly half of Luton’s seven clean sheets across the season.

And with Luton’s 12 goals conceded including one aberration of a result against Reading — a surprising 5–0 defeat at Kenilworth Road- its reasonable to suggest that the Town‘s defensive structure under the returning manager may actually be a touch better than the data suggests.

Conclusion: pushing on?

This, in short, shows the limitations of the overall picture painted by the season long performance data.

While few Luton fans will disagree with the idea that the defence had its shakier moments and that the side didn’t create as many chances as it could have over the season, the imposition of lockdown and the arrival of Nathan Jones has changed the outlook for the club for 2020/2021.

For much of the first two thirds of the 2019/2020 season, the Hatters felt like a side struggling to find its place in the division.

The loss of James Justin and Jack Stacey impacted the Town’s tactical system significantly; Graeme Jones never won over the players or the fans, projecting a sense that the club was doomed from the outset; the reality of being the club with the Championship’s smallest budget seemed to show.

The return of Nathan Jones heralded a return to the habits, if not the precise pattern of play, that had helped Luton win back to back promotions.

He reintegrated key players from the side that clambered up the league into the system. He got the most out of his defence options, with Simon Sluga, James Bree and Cameron Carter-Vickers (loaned to the club in January 2020) particularly standing out.

But arguably most importantly for the season ahead, Jones managed to recapture the confidence and combative spirit that had helped Luton bulldoze its way out of League One in 2018/2019.

This intangible quality, something we can’t ever fully pick up from facts and figures, is part of the reason why Luton may feel capable of pushing towards mid table in the coming season.

Questions remain over the club’s recruitment and whether they will replace (directly or otherwise) Bree and Carter-Vickers. There is the possibility that the financial implications of COVID-19 may tempt a sale of a key player such as Pelly Ruddock or James Collins. The shortened pre-season may also have unintended consequences

However, with Luton’s squad remaining much as it was and with Jones back in the hot seat, the story of how last season ended — and bucked the trend of what went before it — gives room for optimism for Luton fans in the coming weeks and months.

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