Hatters chief knows he did everything he possibly could to try and keep Luton in the Premier League

Luton boss Rob Edwards knows he did absolutely everything he could to try and keep Town in the Premier League this season.

The 3-1 loss at West Ham United means that Town need an extremely unlikely miracle to extend their stay in the top flight beyond Sunday evening when taking on Fulham, as fourth bottom Nottingham Forest, who are three points clear, have a far superior goal difference, meaning Kenilworth Road will be hosting Championship football again next term.

Before and after the drop was all but rubber-stamped, Edwards had spoken in the press about his fear of letting people down if he was unable to lead the club to safety this term. It was something that he needn’t have worried about though, with every supporter appreciating the David and Goliath sized task that lay ahead of their club, with the popularity of Town’s manager higher than it has ever been, due to the way he has carried himself, plus the manner in which the Hatters tried to compete with the big boys on the pitch.

Asked if that is something that has come across when hearing from fans, Edwards said: “I’ll be honest, this week has been strange. I’ve had so many nice messages of support from fans, from the board, from loads of people in my phonebook who have got in touch which is incredible. Yes, a lot of people have reached out and said that (they don’t feel let down) which is really nice and comforting.

"It’s hard because I’ll always feel disappointment, it will always be there, the what if. We were close, but I do feel immensely proud and I don’t normally talk like this, I know we’ve given everything and I know there’s not many people who could have done a better job than we’ve done, I know that. I think we’re good at what we do, I think the players are really good at what they do as well.

"We’ve left it all out there, so I haven’t got too many regrets and that will help me sleep which is good going forward. But I’ve had so many nice messages of support from people saying how proud they are again, how much they’ve loved the journey, they’re backing us and they’re right with us all the way going into next season as well, so it’s really nice to hear.”

With a week now passing to get to grips with going back to the second tier, on how the past few days have been for Edwards, who still has one game left to get his players up for against the Cottagers, he continued: “I didn't know how I was going to deal with it, I didn’t know how I was going to react. I’ve always tried to be positive and really believed that we were going to do it.

"But the sun came up the next day and it was right, focus on the next thing and a little bit like the two previous seasons, which were, great, promotions, and I didn't really think about them too much, I just focused on the next thing, I sort of did the same with this. As a club we’re dealing with it pretty well. The players have been good, Gary (Sweet, CEO) incredibly supportive, the board focused and that’s allowed us to really get on with the work and not mope around, there’s still a job to do and a game to prepare for on Sunday.”

One of the main reasons that the Hatters were never able to get out of the bottom three was a crippling injury list particularly around February when having won three out of five games, they drew 4-4 at Newcastle United. After that, and with Marvelous Nakamba, Tom Lockyer and Amari’i Bell already out for the season, they lost Elijah Adebayo, Sambi Lokonga and Chiedozie Ogbene for long periods, with Jacob Brown, Mads Andersen and Dan Potts never able to make a return either, leading to a run of just one victory in 15 matches.

Although never publicly using that as a reason for relegation, asked if it was the one ‘what if’ moment of the season, Edwards said: “I think so. I’ve not wanted to make excuses, I’ve spoken about the injuries but I’ve tried never to make too much of an excuse about it. There’s probably five or six other clubs who have had similar amounts of injuries and they’ve all had a dip, but none of them have been able to consistently get results. It’s really hard for us to do that with the number of injuries that we had. The lads gave everything, they’ve been brilliant, but ultimately it became very, very challenging for a couple of months.”