Coming from a hard-fought relegation battle in the Premier League, expectations were high for the 2024-2025 EFL Championship season for Luton Town and manager Rob Edwards. The team gave it their all with 6 wins and 8 draws out of the 38 matches played last year. They faced difficult injuries throughout the term and had to cope with their captain, Tom Lockyer, missing the majority of the season due to having a heart attack on the field while playing Bournemouth. Despite all the challenges and pressure the team had, the support the fans gave and the determination the players had was reassuring. Even though the team was able to gain top-flight, premier-league experience, Luton is now sitting toward the bottom of the Championship table.
Looking back on the Premier League season, Luton went head to head with top teams, ending with close results at their tightly packed home stadium, Kenilworth Road. They were able to draw 1-1 with Liverpool at home, beat Brighton 4-0, and almost draw with Arsenal, but it eventually all went wrong when they lost 3-1 to another newly promoted team, Sheffield United. Since then, they were only able to draw with 3 games out of the 15 played, sadly ending with a 4-2 defeat against Fulham at home. Understandably, they weren’t able to stay up, but the position they are currently in is ridiculous.
In their first Championship game, they lost to Burnley at home. Barring some sympathy from key players being out, they shouldn’t have started it off that poorly. Burnley just appointed a new manager and they were playing away from home, as well. The first win of the season was to Millwall. They played terribly, however, and were able to get their first 3 points from their defender, Teden Mengi. They had their main squad back, but with their striker Adebayo not performing well, they only managed to get one goal. Coming to the end of September and the beginning of October, Edwards was barely making any major changes and picking favorites over players who would perform well. Somehow, they lost 3-1 to Wayne Rooney’s side Plymouth Argyle.
The only players who have been performing well and giving it their all have been Doughty, who recently got injured, Kaminski, and Mengi, who is injured and going to be out for months now. Edwards needs to change the formation, the 3-4-3 is not working well and he’s putting players out of their natural position and then blaming them for their mistakes. In my opinion, Rob Edwards needs to go. He’s had his time and gave the team and supporters some of their best experiences, but it seems that he only works well under pressure. It could also be that the squad the former manager Nathan Jones left was well structured and put together and that Edwards was playing off that for as long as he could, but now that it’s time for his tactics to be put in place, nothing is going to plan.
The transfers the club made have been horrendous, buying unfit, almost retired players and inexperienced League 1 players. It doesn’t make sense that they managed to get in players like Sambi Lakonga and Chiedozie Ogbene who gave it their all when we were in the Premier League. They also got rid of Luke Berry, who showed up in key moments and Fred Onyedinma who filled in the right wing back role quite well. There hasn’t been much determination or passion within most of the squad. For example, McGuinness has made too many mistakes for his price, and 33-year-old winger Victor Moses scored one goal, called it good and now plays poorly whenever he comes on. Joe Taylor, who has been expected to play, has only been briefly featured when the team has no forward possession and is losing.
Rob Edwards should have left over the first international break, so whoever was appointed would have time to assess the squad for the January transfer window, but it seems that we are stuck with him and have to hope for the best. It’s looking like Luton might be in a relegation fight towards the end of the season if the team doesn’t start to figure things out.
