Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Ricky Charlesworth

Luton Town aim to bridge £775million gap as they prepare for European champions Chelsea

Luton Town haven't had it this good in a long, long time.

Saturday saw them move into the Championship play-off spots as they continue their impressive rise through the English football pyramid.

Eight years ago they were in the National League after years of mismanagement and off-field dramas.

Now, their fans are dreaming of a top-flight return next season after a 30-year wait.

Those domestic aspirations are to be parked on Wednesday however when they welcome European champions, Chelsea, to their modest Kenilworth Road home in the FA Cup fifth round.

It offers Town a chance to bloody the nose of one of the game's big guns - and will provide a more-than-decent barometer of where Nathan Jones' team is at.

Can Luton pull off an FA Cup shock? Let us know in the comments

Of course, there is a genuine chance that these two could meet as equals next season. Luton are sixth and on a fine run of form; they've lost just one of their last eight league games.

However, their opponents on Wednesday are a wounded animal following their dramatic Carabao Cup final defeat by Liverpool on penalties.

And while football is not played on paper, the difference in terms of what each club has to work with could not be further apart.

Transfermarkt, the respected industry tool website that constantly measures transfer values of players, cites Luton as having the fourth-lowest squad value in the Championship.

The whole Hatters' squad has a total market value of £18.9million.

That is dwarfed by Chelsea, whose roster comes in at a staggering £794.7m - representing a £775m difference.

But Luton have overcome the odds before.

You only have to go back two seasons for their great escape. At one stage they looked doomed to an immediate return to League One. The club were in the bottom three places from Boxing Day right up until the final game of the season, when a victory saw them leap to 19th.

Jones' return to the club, after a horror spell at Stoke, was the catalyst for that survival and the Welshman continued the improvement last term with a top-half finish.

Now, implausibly given their resources, they are aiming for what would be a first tilt at the top flight since 1992 (they were relegated in the season before the inaugural Premier League campaign).

Chief executive Gary Sweet, speaking to the Athletic, readily admits the club are up against it financially but refuses to rule out such a prospect.

He said: "Bottom three (Luton’s budget in relation to rest of Championship), they’re our assessments. It’s difficult to know if I’m right because the accounts don’t come out for a while.

“We operate our own salary cap. One of the ratios we try to look at is: how much does a point cost us? We’re doing well on that, we’re top of the league on that. It shows you if you need to be a bit more ambitious.

"Where we are, we are really comfortable with it. The interesting thing is promotion, we don’t hide away from it. If you imagine us taking Kenilworth Road into the Premier League… we have to be ready for that. It would take a lot of preparation."

To that end, a new stadium is already in the pipeline with plans for a 23,000-capacity ground set to be finalised in the coming months.

For now though, Kenilworth remains home.

And Wednesday night offers this quirky old stadium the chance for Luton to rub shoulders with Chelsea's stars - and surely whet their appetite for more frequent meetings like this next season.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.