Luton manager Matt Bloomfield apologises to fans after relegation

Three successive wins against Derby County, Bristol City and Coventry City in the second half of April had revived Luton’s hopes of staying up.

Before that run they were second bottom. Coming out of it they were outside of the relegation zone by a point with their fate in their hands on the season’s last day.

Win, against opponents with nothing to play for in West Brom, and safety was guaranteed.

They could not have picked a worse time, then, to produce a performance like the one delivered at The Hawthorns and for their form to totally desert them.

Luton had lost just once in nine Championship games heading into the final day.

They had also conceded three goals in a game just once since a 3-2 defeat at Oxford United on 21 January and that was a 4-0 defeat at automatically promoted Burnley in March.

No wonder Bloomfield said of their awfully-timed collapse: “I don’t know [where that display came from].

“We’ve been incredibly resilient in the last two months to really shore up at the back and unfortunately today it just wasn’t there.

“We’ve done so well to drag ourselves back into this position and to fall at the final hurdle was particularly painful for everybody involved.”