Home for key, says coach
First team development coach Carl Emberson is hoping the Hatters can kick-start their home form with a victory over AFC Telford at Kenilworth Road on Saturday.
The Town failed to get off to a winning start in front of the home faithful when held to a 2-2 draw against Gateshead a fortnight ago.
But since that opening day point the Hatters have won back-to-back away fixtures.
And Emberson, who won promotion with the Town in 2001/02 believes a win over the Bucks can be the platform to build momentum at Kenilworth Road.
“Obviously your home form is key to many promotions,” said the coach, standing in for Paul Buckle at Thursday’s press call.
“I think last year in League Two Shrewsbury won 20 league games at home, but they weren’t so strong away.
“Home form is a major factor in getting promotion, but we would like to think this year we will be strong away as well as at home.
“We are looking to win every game and we’re not going to make any excuses, I think with the squad we’ve got we’re capable of winning at home or away.
“That’s what we’re looking for, well, we’re demanding it. But we’re at home on Saturday and we’ve got to stamp our authority early on.
“We have to go about it our way and come out with a really positive mental attitude and get at teams and show if they are going to come to Luton they’re going to come to a high tempo team that are going to press and look to score many goals.
“At home we would like to play with a bit more tempo and really take the game to teams and the fans can really help that.
“I think it’s a massive thing for us this year that at home we have to play with a real tempo and a real way about ourselves that we are going to take against teams.
“If we can get 7,000 people behind us, that’s a massive bonus.
“It’s always a lot harder when you’re not doing well and the fans are a bit disgruntled but, as it showed the other night, when they got behind us the team lifted and when we got the first goal there was only going to be one winner in that game and it was only a matter of time before we got the second.
“It’s a massive part of it. Any team that is successful and gets out of a division they’ll have the fans well behind them.
“You don’t see teams that are at the top calling for people’s heads. We’ve got to have that and we’ve got to start that and the only way we can do that is if we play good attacking football and we score goals and entertain them.”
Andy Sinton’s Telford earned their first win of the season last weekend with a 3-0 success over Braintree.
The Bucks held the Town to a 1-1 draw on their last visit to Kenilworth Road and Emberson knows the threat they’ll pose after watching them last weekend.
“I went and watched them on and Telford did well but Braintree weren’t that good either,” he said.
“They’ve picked up last week, it was a great result to win 3-0, but it will be a different kettle of fish when they play someone as strong as us.
“Again with our squad and our team I think we’ll cause them a few problems.
“They do try and play football. They like to play counter-attacking football as well.
“They almost played with traditional wingers, 4-4-2 with wide men and caused problems for Braintree and they’ve got some players we need to be on our toes with, we’ve got to be aware of.
“But in the same breath they’ll be worrying about us with our pace in our team, because are blessed with a lot of pace in our team which will be causing them problems.
“But unfortunately I’m not sure they will be so brave against us as they were against Braintree. They were very adventurous last week.
“I hope they are that adventurous when they come to us. It will be a great game to watch and we will have to wait and see if they are as brave as that against Luton.
“It’s just something we have to do. We look at the now but it could be totally different Saturday.
“It’s something we do have to look into and will pay respect to, Telford are coming here and we’re in the same league as them and we have to treat them like any other team that are fighting for promotion. ”
On the selection from Danny Spiller, Garry Richards and James Dance remain sidelined but Emberson expects the Town to pick from a strong group.
“There’s always little niggles but there’s nothing to be really worried about there as we speak now,” he said. “We’re pretty confident that we should have a strong squad for Saturday.”