Luton Town directors say they made mistake that could lead to relegation after record £48.8m profit

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Last year, Luton Town were battling the big boys in the Premier League, but in just a few months, they could find themselves down in League One.

It’s been a rapid and very worrying fall from grace for the Hatters. After their surprising yet inspiring promotion to the top flight in the 2022/23 campaign, Rob Edwards’ side captured the hearts of many neutrals.

They couldn’t quite get the job done in the Premier League, though, and ended up returning to the Championship with an 18th place finish. Although, in fairness, Luton did finish above Burnley and way ahead of Sheffield United.

Most had expected Luton to be up there competing for promotion again this season, but while the Clarets and the Blades have made good on their pre-season predictions, Luton have been embroiled in the Championship relegation battle pretty much all year.

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Luton Town should have spent more to avoid Premier League drop

Changing managers partway through this season might still prove to be a wise decision for Luton, with Matt Bloomfield starting to get the team moving in the right direction. Indeed, a draw against Leeds this weekend has left Luton in a much better position in the Championship today.

But, looking back at the past couple of years, the club’s directors have admitted they probably didn’t do enough to stave off relegation from the Premier League, especially in light of the club’s financial record for the year ending June 2024.

Luton recorded profits of £48.8m, way up from the £16m loss of the previous year, though the club opted to spend much of that influx of cash on improving the training facilities and Kenilworth Road to get everything up to Premier League standards.

In a statement, the directors said: “In hindsight the club might have reinforced more [in January], as from the turn of the year onwards injuries began to blight the season with a number of key players succumbing to long term issues that would see them miss all or large parts of the remainder of the season.

“The club recorded 11 missing players in a single game week, the joint-highest in the 2023-24 season, while 18 of the 26-man squad were ruled out at some point, with many of these injuries concentrated in the second half of the season, severely hampering the team’s efforts to avoid the drop.”

Admittedly, Luton did break their transfer record multiple times in the summer prior to the Premier League campaign, bringing in the likes of Tahith Chong from Birmingham, Ryan Giles from Wolves, Blackburn keeper Thomas Kaminski, and Jacob Brown from Stoke.

They also added big name free agents in addition to signing free agents Tim Krul, Andros Townsend, and Ross Barkley. However, the decision to only sign just one player in January — defender Daiki Hashioka — proved to be a costly one as Luton’s form tailed off in the final run-in, taking just six points from their final 16 games.

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Relegation now would be incredibly costly for Luton Town

With six games to go, Luton are currently on course to be relegated once again. Indeed, looking at historical data, it would seem the Hatters won’t have what it takes to stay up in the Championship this year.

That would obviously be a disaster in footballing terms, with Luton taking massive backwards steps after such impressive progress to get to the Premier League.

With the squad they had, and indeed still have, relegation should never have been on the cards this season, but something just hasn’t clicked. That happens sometimes, but it would be catastrophic for the Hatters now.

Position	Team	Played MP	Won W	Drawn D	Lost L	For GF	Against GA	Diff GD	Points Pts
20	Stoke CityStoke City	40	10	13	17	41	53	-12	43
21	DerbyDerby	40	11	8	21	42	52	-10	41
22	CardiffCardiff	40	9	14	17	43	63	-20	41
23	LutonLuton	40	10	9	21	36	61	-25	39
24	PlymouthPlymouth	40	8	13	19	42	78	-36	37

The club has a huge wage bill, again, largely as a side-effect of that time in the Premier League. We’re not saying it would leave Luton in financial ruin to get relegated, but it would surely push them close.

We know that if Luton are relegated the Premier League will need to bail them out with an additional £4.5m in parachute payments. That would help, naturally, but with the exodus of talent that would surely follow relegation, it could be a long time before we see Luton get back to the second tier if they do go down now.