Edwards wants more despite being hugely proud of Luton’s ‘amazing’ third place in the Championship

Luton boss Rob Edwards insists the club should take huge credit for an ‘amazing’ third place finish in the Championship this season, although is keen for them to cap it off by also winning the upcoming play-offs.

The Hatters kept up their quite remarkable progress in the footballing echelon having improved their final league placing every year since the 2015-16 campaign when they came 11th in League Two.

Since then, Town were fourth and second in the fourth tier, before winning League One and then ending up 19th, 12th and sixth in the Championship.

Middlesbrough’s 1-0 defeat at Rotherham United ahead of the Hatters’ 1-1 draw with Blackburn Rovers on Monday evening meant Town’s third spot was confirmed even before a ball was kicked, as on the achievement, Edwards said: “A big credit to everyone at the club.

“To build on the brilliant work from last season, to go higher again for I don’t know how many seasons that is in a row the club has done that, it’s amazing, so I’m really, really proud of everyone.

“All the players, supporters who again came in great numbers a long, long way when the game is on TV, so thankyou to them.

“They were great and all the board and all the hard work that everyone has done to get us into this position this season, but it’s not over yet, we’ve still got a job to do.”

When Edwards took over at Kenilworth Road in November, the Hatters were sitting in 10th spot, although only three points away from Blackburn Rovers, who were in third themselves.

The boss had always spoken about being ‘in the mix’ with five games to go, and asked whether he had imagined third was possible, was clearly still in the mood for more, as he added: “We don’t go into this game to finish third, we all want to win things.

“It is great, I’m proud of everyone, I recognise that and I don’t want to downplay it at all, but we want to achieve stuff, we want to win things.

“We all know what that means and what we’ve got to try and do over these next few weeks, but I believed in this group of players.

“Look what they did last year, look how well they were doing when we came in, total belief in them, I tell them that all the time.

“They’ve done great for us in the 24 games we’ve had so far and we’ve got at least three more big ones to go and let’s see if it’s four, hopefully it is.”

Although Town’s players knew they were assured of third place before they even kicked off on Monday evening, they still put in a whole-hearted performance at Ewood Park against a side who were desperate for the points for their own play-off ambitions.

Edwards confirmed the players knew of the result prior to the contest, adding: “We were able to watch the game at the hotel, so we were aware of the result.

“It’s difficult when you finish third or fourth, you know you’re playing away first and home next (in the play-offs), so who can know where they want to finish?

“It’s so difficult at this stage, it shows how difficult this competition is, the Championship.

“Rotherham are fighting for their lives and we had a similar sort of thing with Blackburn.

“They know they’re needing to win and it’s really difficult when you come up against that, when we’re in this sort of limbo position if you like.

“We’re professional people in a professional game and we owe it to the competition as well, there was never any doubt in that.

“It’s great for the lads, they deserve a heck of a lot of credit, they’ve performed and got the point.

“We should be really proud of them, but what we want to achieve is not done yet, so we’ve got to keep working hard.

“They demand it from themselves and we do as well.