Boss on Town's need for victory...and goals...
With the Hatters needing three points and a mighty goalscoring performance to overhaul Plymouth to leapfrog into the final League 2 Play-Off place, the Town will be hunting plenty goals in their final match of the campaign against Stevenage on Saturday.
Manager John Still, however, says the Town won’t be going hell for leather in a hap-hazard bid for a bucketful of goals against Boro – especially as it could leave them vulnerable at the back.
It’s a catch 22 situation for the boss, but Still confirmed, unsurprisingly given the task ahead, that his side will be on the front foot from the off against a Stevenage team already guaranteed a place in the Play-Offs.
“I don’t think you go silly, but we’ve got to put the emphasis on attacking, absolutely,” said the manager at his Thursday press conference.
“You’ve got to do it structured. You can’t do it unstructured, but we’ll go out and give it a go and see where it goes.
“If we were fortunate enough to get in front by a couple, maybe in the last 20 minutes you might go gung-ho, but we’ll see.
“I want to try and be entertaining and attacking and come off winning or losing where everyone looks at it and goes, ‘we had to get that amount of goals, we tried, it hasn’t quite worked but we’ve had a right go at it’, or ‘isn’t it fantastic, it has worked, that’s because we had a go’.
“So we’ll have a go on Saturday and hopefully end the season positively.”
But even if the Town do fail in their bid to reach the Play-Offs – and the odds suggest that will be the case – the boss knows that this season’s performance will stand them in good stead next term.
“I’ll be disappointed,” admitted Still. “But we’ll be in a stronger position that we were in at the start of the season.
“Knowing that we competed in this league, knowing we’ve gone close in this league and knowing what we’ve got to do to try and push on and find the next step.”
So if it doesn’t happen on Saturday. No sweat. There’s always next season…