A TALE OF TWO TOWNS - PT. 2 NATHAN JONES HAS BEEN GONE TOO LONG
The second instalment. A statistical review of Luton Town’s end to the 2019/20 season under the returning Nathan Jones. The fight for survival, key players and the all or nothing end to the season.
As the title suggests this is the Part 2 to the original Part 1 - A Nice Man Named Graeme.
It’s January 11th 2020 and despite knowing that this season had the feel it was going to be an uphill struggle from the start and not necessarily wanting to add my voice to an already vocal chorus of dissent against our manager (who I really believe was doing his best) I Tweeted this:
I did this after an appalling home game against Birmingham in which, despite controlling possession and them going down to 10 men late on, we’d only managed two shots on target and eventually lost 2-1. Boos rang out around a packed Kenilworth Road.
I ended the WhatsApp updates for my brother with “That’s it, he’ll go today.” and sent him a link to my Tweeted declaration. He replied saying he had reservations about me joining the “manager out brigade” and I knew he was right (you see he’s a better - more considered person than me and despite my best efforts I can let emotion get the better of me).
I clicked on the Tweet and was ready to delete it when I saw that someone (namely Andrew Barringer - ex-press / media, social, programme writer and all round nice chap) had replied…
My heart sank a bit. I knew the chances of getting Nathan back were always going to be slim and it was a bit of a pipe dream but confirmation that it was never going to happen from someone who was (and I’d imagine still is) very close to the club had dashed any hopes.
But given the fact it was a year (to the day in fact) that this had come to light I could understand why feelings were still a little more than raw.
THIS MUST BE SOME KIND OF STOKE
Whilst I was hurt when Nathan left, he never said he’d stay forever. That said, he did jokingly allude to the fact that if he did leave it’d be for Barcelona - not for bloody Stoke! At the time he left us Stoke were 12 positions above us in the football pyramid, but had the sky-divingly-thrilling prospect of some floaty parachute payments, a chairman with the financial backing to help him really shape a title-challenging squad and the chance to bring his brand of exciting football to the long-ball long-thrown-in merchants… but still Stoke.
I don’t know if I was alone in this but for a good while I watched almost every one of his post match interviews for the remainder of the 18/19 season. I think I did this in part so I could revel in some karma-fueled misery when they lost but also some part of me wanted to see him do well and succeed at Stoke - I think to prove that him leaving us wasn’t all in vain. In the back of my mind I kept thinking back to when Eddie Howe left Bournemouth - it didn’t work out and he returned to take them forward to even greater glory. I never truly thought it would be the case with Nathan but it was a thought (well, actually more of a hope) that I just couldn’t quite shake off.
As it played out, we ended up in the same league as Nathan and his Stoke and the chance of a reunion in December in which we could look to get one over on the less than monogamous Welsh-man was an appetising one. However that wasn’t to be - after just under 10 months at the club (less than a third of the way through his three and a half year deal) and only 14 games into the new Championship season the Potters parted company with Nathan on November 1 2019. Despite being relatively early in the season it definitely didn’t feel like the Stoke board put Nathan out of his Midlands misery immediately.
Did they believe he could turn around his Titanic season? Were they trying to punish him for failing to deliver on any of his promises? Or were they just biding their time to line up his successor to give themselves the best odds of survival? My belief is it was the latter. After all, they are shrewd group who will do whatever they can to keep the odds in their favour.
The countless number of post-match interviews in which Nathan seemed broken by yet another abject performance from his error-ridden players got more and more painful to watch as time went on.
Side note: Just reading some of the replies under that Tweet will give you some indication of how Stoke fans felt about him at the time.
With his spirit in tatters and after months of everyone asking “How is he still in the job?” he was suddenly gone, swallowed into the abyss of ex-managers with his previously sparkling CV left somewhat tainted by the fact that he, on paper (and for whatever underlying reasons), couldn’t cut it in the Championship. It left people asking whether he’d been found out at that level, if he just needed more time and more faith from the board to implement his ideology or if the scale of the task at Stoke was just too vast (other very talented had fallen foul of this - namely Gary Rowett who would go on to show just how good a manager he was by doing things with Millwall that I’d never thought possible).
I figured it might be worth taking a quick look at just what happened with Nathan and Stoke. When I say a quick look, much like Nathan (who now solely refers to Stoke as ‘my former club’ and never references them by name as if, akin to some kind of Candyman-esque horror film) I too like to pretend it didn’t happen, so it’ll very much be a brief overview of just what went so spectacularly wrong for him.
Quite simply; Stoke both underperformed and underachieved.
As the final panel of the graph above from @experimental 361 clearly shows it was pretty much as bad, in terms of underachievement (relative to expectation) as it’s got in the last five years for Stoke.
To quote @CityAnalytica from a DM to me when asked about the demise of Nathan at Stoke:
“In summary he was unlucky but after so many games he lost all his confidence and nerve and began changing team selections and formations, [I] was gutted when he got sacked.”
In terms of being ‘unlucky’ pretty much all the expected stats point to that being the case. On the weekend that he was let go, Stoke found themselves sitting 23rd in the league and as you can see from @EFLStats table if the League was based on xG it would’ve had Stoke actually challenging for the playoffs in eighth (a swing of 15 places difference from the harsh reality of the actual League table).
Side note: In Christoph Biermann’s (@chbiermann) excellent book “The Science and Art of a Data Revolution” he examines the concept of bad luck and coincidence within football - in his chapter entitled The Power of Coincidence - ‘The Table Does Lie’. He examines how Klopp’s Dortmund ended up near the relegation zone during his last season in charge there and how Liverpool’s 2015 Head of Research, Ian Graham, still had faith in him as a great coach stating that they “really thought Dortmund had had bad luck” and had figured that through their expected goals model that the club should actually be in second - Well worth a read.
HERE’S WHAT YOU SHOULD’VE WON
So, if Stoke were playing the style of football that is creating a lot of clear cut goal scoring chances, is it wrong of them to have assumed Nathan was to blame for their lowly league position? So who was to blame? The players - for not taking their chances / letting in chances they shouldn’t have?
When quizzed by PlayMakerStats about who should shoulder the lion’s share of the blame Tom Thrower (Stoke City fan and analyst) replied:
“My initial reaction is to say the players. Stoke went into pre-season looking more drilled than they had since the days of hill running under Tony Pulis. Everything seemed to be lined up for a successful start to the campaign, then a series of individual errors appears to have undone all of this work...”
WHAT IFS AND BUTLANDS
Later in the article, Thrower goes on to call out Jack Butland whose start of the 2019/20 season made our own Simon Sluga’s look composed by comparison and Joe Allen who seemed partial to both a red card and to missing open goals (wreaking havoc on the xG tables).
Looking at Butland momentarily - his performances under Jones seemed, at times, comically bad leading @Blades_analytic to ask…
When Stoke dropped down into the Championship many were surprised that the usually reliable ex-England International Butland wasn’t snapped up by a Premier League club. It didn’t quite seem like a keeper of his calibre would (or should) be kept out of the Prem for long.
And, prior to Nathan’s arrival, Butland was very much the unrivalled (and unquestioned) number one for the Potters. Looking at the two seasons that preceded 2019/20, it’s clear to see why.
(Thanks to @StatsPerform’s interactive round up and @PeterMcKeever for these)
But, what appeared to be equivalent to a golfer getting ‘the yips’, his confidence and reliability between sticks seemed to almost entirely disappear, with calls for him to be dropped coming almost as soon as the season had begun.
Having prevented more than eight (expected) goals (8.4 in total) over the previous two seasons, Butland’s performances capitulated in 2019/20 with the keeper unable to stop the team shipping over eight goals (-8.1) that he would’ve been, from a stats-perspective anyway, expected to save.
And whilst we were having to contend with our own comedy of errors in terms of Sluga’s struggle to initially settle into a new team, in a league, in a new country (as examined in part. 1) @_reecechambers chart below from February clearly puts into perspective just how bad a start to the season Butland had made (even in comparison to our recklessly lovable Croatian).
Aside from some schoolboy errors from players who were much too old and wise, you’d think, to be making them - what or who else could blame be ascribed to?
Well, Nathan himself.
As @CityAnalytica acknowledged earlier Nathan appeared to lose his confidence and nerve in both his team selections and formation. This is echoed in the remainder of the quote from Tom Thrower in the Play Maker Stats article which reads:
“...But that is not to remove all blame from Jones. Jones seems to have lost faith in his own system and preferred XI.”
DIAMONDS AREN’T FOREVER
For a man who puts a lot of emphasis on his unwavering faith, it was obviously a very nervy time with a lot of doubts creeping in. As referenced in part one; I stated that I believed our (Luton’s) 2017/18 League One dominance was down, in no small part, to Nathan’s commitment to his beloved diamond and having a stable and reliable first XI complimented by affective squad players aka his ‘game changers’ (the morale boosting name he uses for subs - which is actually surprisingly effective in changing both fan’s and player’s mentalities to them).
It is interesting that during his time at Luton in his debut role as a first team manager it hadn’t all exactly been plane sailing but there were very few instances that I remember where his job was ever really in question.
But when the tide had turned and turned against him - what was his reaction? One way of analysing this is that he began to question himself, his players and the culture he was attempting to instill in the club. The way that manifested, was that he went from being someone committed to a specific formation and way of playing, to one who surpassed all others in terms of his tinkering of both personnel and formation (as @Infogol’s @MarkTaylor0 points out below).
As well as losing faith in what he was doing, the pressure heaped on by both the board and the fans was clearly taking its toll on him. As I said earlier with each post-match becoming more and more excruciating and for someone who’s well known for being honest, regardless of how hard it is to admit, even he seemed to get lost along the way. Perfect example here being his numbers:
But to sound like a clichéd post-match interview… at the end of the day whilst his own numbers, formations and players were letting him down the harsh reality of the actual (not expected) numbers while he was in charge at his ‘previous club’ made for reading that would make even the most devout manager question both his own ability and faith in what he does.
WATER UNDER THE BURNT BRIDGE
It’s April 24th - the day that Graeme and his staff had been let go and I decided it would be an interesting time to ‘ask the audience’ as to whether the Luton fans would welcome back Nathan for the last nine games of the season.
The result of the poll (from an admittedly small sample size) was 50/50 and that’s really how it felt in discussing it with them. For many, it was a ‘never go back’ no matter what scenario but for others they were willing to look beyond his treachery, presumably for the greater good. I can totally understand the reticence. The first time I saw him celebrate with the Stoke fans in the same way he used to do with us after a big win, made part of what we went through with him feel less special.
Fast forward a month and Twitter is awash with rumours of Nathan’s impending return. Whilst Twitter rumours are never the most accurate indication of something actually happening, the bookies also slashed their odds on it, to the point where it now seemed both literally and metaphorically an odds on certainty.
High off the fumes of said rumours we Tweeted out the following list of why we (both my brother and I) sat not just in the 50% who were willing to invite Nathan to return camp but in a group who considered it by far the best thing we, as a club, could do.
For me, not only did it make sense on a lot of levels, it was yet another instance of our relentlessly brilliant board putting the club’s best interests first.
The next day the club’s official Twitter account confirmed the news and hours later I, along with quite a few other Luton fans, watched on enthralled at, by far, the most entertaining Zoom call since COVID began. In which the local and national press had gathered and before it could be officially declared by Gary Sweet a small square lit up in the corner of the digital meeting with the name Nathan Jones ascribed to it - it was met with universal smirks. What followed was a frank and forthright interrogation of how and why this reunion had come about. The main revelation being that (Big) Mick Harford had acted as the mediator and peacemaker between the two estranged parties (Nathan and the Board) - I didn’t think it was possible for me to love that man more than I already did/do - I was wrong.
Nathan was back, and according to both him and Gary this time it was for the ‘long term’.
THE RETURN OF THE GUY WHO PUT THE GAFF IN GAFFER
Gary Sweet on Nathan:
“The fact remains that Nathan is the best manager we’ve had at Luton for decades. His three years here were revolutionary and enabled us to elevate the Club’s status beyond our wildest dreams.
“But first, to make sure none of that past hard work – from both Nathan and Mick – does not go to waste, we have an immediate job to do.”
This was our CEO’s quote from the official club statement about Nathan’s return.
I thought I’d break it down and first look at how Nathan compares to other managers who’ve taken the helm at Luton over the last 30 years.
Nathan vs Previous Luton Managers of recent decades
Whilst the chart above doesn’t take into a number of factors; League and/or league position when they took charge, strength of squad, budget, board in charge at the time they were manager and many other external factors - it does clearly show that in terms of winning consistently over a long period of time as manager of the club Nathan was, as Gary Sweet rightly points out, “the best manager Luton have had at the club for decades”.
Side note(s): It also shows I was also, perhaps, slightly too harsh on both Paul Buckle and Dicky Dosh (Richard Money) during their times in charge - although they were both absolute pricks so I still stand by most of my criticisms. Namely the contempt with which they treated the fans and their distinct lack of ability to play players in their actual positions - in comparison they made Gareth Southgate look like he knows what he’s doing (soz ‘Gary’ but until you stop including 15 right backs in the squad and at least consider playing James Justin at left back I’m going to think you don’t know what you’re doing). Also with Buckle and Money we were, at the time, a comparatively big fish in a small lower league shaped pond and the expectation that we’d be winning was apparent.
It’s also nice to be able to explore the comparison between Mick Harford’s 2008 season, with the ever-present and unassailable battle against the 30 point deduction that the FA and the league so lovingly bestowed upon us VS when he took charge after Nathan buggered off to Stoke (which I go into a fair bit of detail on in Part. 1).
The scale of the task at hand and ensuring we didn’t end up taking a big footballing and financial step backwards
Nathan had a couple of big jobs on his hands (never nice) - winning back the trust and respect of, not only the fans but also, the players he’d so swiftly abandoned. He started with big apologies to both groups and it was obvious to everyone that the fans wouldn’t be able to fully articulate how disgruntled they still were with him - as COVID meant the remaining games of the season would be behind closed (and heavily sanitised) doors. Would that turn out to be a blessing or curse for Nathan? When on his side his Barmy Army were one of the biggest assets in his game changing arsenal - but I certainly felt it was almost a blessing in disguise for him as he’d be able to just focus on what was happening on the pitch.
The other big job was the nine remaining games of the 2019/20 season. With hopes of the league being scrapped and us all just forgetting about the season and starting it again as if it had never happened, being well and truly dashed. We were going to have to do it ourselves and do it the hard way.
Going into, the much delayed, Game Week 38 Luton’s league table stats read as follows:
League Position: 23rd
Played: 37
Won: 10
Drawn: 5
Lost: 22
Points: 35
Safety, at that point, lay six points away with only nine games left to play. But that six points was more realistically seven with our goal difference of -28 (14 clear of the nearest competitor - Hull) effectively meaning that we would have to be clear on points of the relegation zone as if it came down to relying on goal difference we were to put it bluntly… fucked.
(How fucked? I hear you say - in probably a less sweary tone - well Gary Sweet subsequently said it could cost us somewhere in the region of £6m+, meanining we’d have to slash our wage bill and leave us with next to nothing in terms of transfer budget and might put our move to our new stadium in jeopardy - so to quote Snatch... ‘proper fucked’).
And as if the traditional league table didn’t look daunting enough at the time, we also had probability (through the eyes of Ben Mayhew’s possible movement modelling) stacked heavily against us. As you can see from his chart below, whilst it was still technically a possibility that we could make the playoffs by far the most statistically likely outcome for us and our triumphant return to the Championship was that we were going to finish last (or possibly second or third from bottom).
Nine games to go.
As I said in Part 1 it never felt for a moment like there were any ‘easy’ games in the Championship and our final run-in was no different. There were certainly no easy games but at this point it had become clearer to see which teams were doing well or badly (in terms of league position) and which were pretty much already consigned to a mid-table finish.
Our next nine fixtures were: Preston (H), Swansea (A), Leeds (A), Reading (H), Barnsley (H), Huddersfield (A), QPR (H), Hull (A) and ending with Blackburn at Kenilworth Road on the final day.
On the face of it, it looked like very much a mixed bag ahead of us. The stand out games were the ‘6-pointers’ against fellow relegation battlers Barnsley and Hull. Getting anything from top of the League Leeds would be a massive bonus. It would then be interesting to see how much those mid-tablers with ‘nothing to play for’ would bother (namely Reading, QPR and Blackburn).
WE’RE IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP MY FRIEND AND WE’LL KEEP ON FIGHTING TILL THE END
It’s now June 20th - Championship football has returned to our screens and Luton Town are once again being commandeered by a passionate, slightly older and slightly more worldly-wise Welshman by the name of Nathan Jones (his first game as Town manager in 536 days). He’s had a little over three weeks with his team and crammed in a friendly game against Brentford which he/they won. It was a positive sign, but how fresh would they be considering they hadn’t played a competitive league in over three months since the beginning of March? But neither had anyone else for that matter.
Ahead of them lay a decent Preston side who sat 6th in the table and hopeful of maintaining their playoff place. An honest, hard-working, solid Championship side if ever there was one.
The big questions in all our minds were:
How would Nathan set us up?
How different would the side look to Graeme’s?
Would we see the return of any of ‘his players’ who’d been cast into the wilderness by Graeme?
Would he build the side around Izzy Brown?
The answers were as follows:
He set them up in pretty much exactly the same way as Graeme had - same formation and very similar personnel.
The only real difference was that he played on loan centre back Cameron Carter-Vickers (CCV) instead of club captain Sonny Bradley at LCB
Izzy ‘we’ll get nowhere without our best players’ Brown started the game
The other key things to highlight about the game was that Nathan hadn’t brought Luke Berry or Kazenga LuaLua (who it turned out had a knee injury) back into the fray - despite it feeling like he could and potentially would reignite their seasons. Andrew Shinnie and Elliott Lee did however make the bench. A bench from which Nathan could choose to call upon up to five reinforcements in the game (due to the new COVID regulations).
After a cagey but organised first half we went a goal behind early in the second half as Cranie got caught out of position and Preston’s annoyingly pacy veteran (I mean who’s still that rapid at 33?!) Scott Sinclair finished neatly. With every point being worth it’s weight in Championship TV money gold I was reassured to see Nathan roll the dice and use all five of his available reinforcements and true to form - it was one of his beloved “game changers” who drew us level. Callum McManaman on to replace, the then exhausted, Izzy Brown danced through the centre having picked up a pass from James Bree and stuck one perfectly in the top corner from outside of the area.
In truth, it was a game we probably deserved to lose. We hardly created any chances whatsoever but… and with Luton there’s ALWAYS a but - we defied the the ‘Expected Gods’ and in a game where we shouldn’t have scored we got ourselves a goal and more importantly a point. Were we reaping the achievement rewards from Nathan’s underachieving time at Stoke? I and every other Hatter’s fan bloody hoped so.
Of all the selection decisions the one that proved most crucial (alongside the decision to bring on McManaman to change the game) was that of starting CCV at the back. His performance showed just the calibre of player we had on our hands. Composed and combative in equal measure he bossed the Preston attack and marshalled our defence so very well.
It’s 27 June 2020 (a week after the draw at Preston) and we’re away at Swansea. Our away form up until this point had been nothing shy of abysmal (just three wins and one draw from 19 games - insert sad face emoji). However, with the spring in our step from Nathan’s return, scoring the equaliser late on in the previous game and the fact that there’d be no fans in attendance at the Liberty Stadium this seemed as good a time as any to attempt to reverse our travelling fortunes.
Having stuck to what we knew and created next to fuck all in terms of chances against Preston I felt almost certain that he might try something a little different against the Swans. Would that mean personnel or formation?
It turned out to be a bit of both. Bradley joined CCV at the back allowing him to take the RCB role while Bradley returned to his standard LCB position. Pearson was drafted in as RB (a position he’d rarely been used in) to attempt to deal with pace and power of Ayew and Brewster. Elliott Lee was also brought back into the fold and by ‘fold’ I mean the actual starting XI - playing wide left of a 4-1-4-1. Cornick also returned to the opposite wing.
It was a formation that offered us width (in the form of Lee and Cornick out wide), defensive cover (with Glen Rea sitting in front of and protecting the back four) and one that would allow us to switch to a more attacking 4-3-3 easily when in possession.
For a full detailed look at the line up and formation chosen by Nathan that day against Swansea I’d definitely suggest you take a look at @Dylan_Bhundia’s excellent tactical analysis that clearly spells out just how and why it worked (spoiler) against a strong Swansea side.
In the first half we were organised and efficient. Lee, who hadn’t played since the opening game of the season the previous August, looked like he’d played every single game (it was a display that showed how harsh his treatment had been under Graeme and why he was well within his rights to celebrate on Instagram Stories when he left).
It was strange at times during the game - it felt like everything had changed - great wide play, breaking on the counter, a high and intense press, Sluga looking brilliantly assured, Dan Potts playing out of his skin (not something we’d really seen for over a season and a half) and at times it felt like nothing had. Cornick leaving defenders in his wake and then missing the sitters that he’d put on a plate for himself, a distinct lack of possession and having to rely on a moment of brilliance from Izzy to be the difference for us (this time it was that he landed a cross on James Collin’s head with the levels of precision usually only displayed by Gillette’s latest 28 blade razor - reading that back that sentence is proper Partidge-y). Admittedly we were helped slightly as Swansea were reduced to 10 men for almost the entirety of the second half after a minute of madness, a confrontational melee and a punch swung in the direction of James Collin’s goal scoring head.
Yet again we defied the expectations.
All-in-all it was a masterful away setup and performance and three massive points on the road to add to the table (oh and not to mention a very well deserved clean sheet for the resurgent Simon Sluga). We showed a grit and determination to see out the game that I felt had been lacking under Graeme.
League Position: 23rd
HOLDING ON TO OUR LEEDS
The games were coming thick and fast now. Next up, Bielsa’s table-topping Leeds.
Now Nathan, whilst he is an excellent man-manager motivator and to his credit tactician, isn’t in the same tactical league as Bielsa (yes, I know technically he was but you know what I mean). He had, however, managed to get the better of the wily Argentinian two out the three times that his Stoke side had come up against him and his very talented Leeds side (admittedly one was a win on pens in the EFL Cup but still a W is a W).
Leeds were by far and away the best team in the League, anything we managed to get from the game was, as I said earlier, a bonus. If you want a peak into how they viewed the upcoming battle with us - I’d recommend the excellent @AllStatsAreWe’s match preview in which he describes Nathan as a ‘savvy manager’ and our team as potentially dangerous (pointing to Swansea as a prime example) - he definitely didn’t underestimate our abilities.
Nathan mixed things up again in terms of both formation and personnel - he opted for 3-5-2 opting to utilise Potts and Bree as wing backs and also rotated in Hylton, McManaman for some much needed game time and put Cranie in at CDM to cover for the injured Rea.
Leeds, somewhat unsurprisingly, dominated much of the ball and created a slew of chances but we held out until half time. Then just after half time Harry ‘I love missing sitters’ Cornick decides, due to a distinct lack of other options as he’d hit them on the break and everyone else was still playing catch up, to hit a speculative screamer from outside the box and curled it perfectly into the top corner.
Despite a truly incredible performance by Sluga he, and our back three, were unable to keep the unrelenting Leeds attack at bay and they snuck an equaliser. Full time 1-1. A (Brucey) bonus point, away at Leeds - who would go on to be the runaway Champions.
For a brilliantly in-depth look at how the game played out I’d recommend diving into Daryl Gouilard’s great slideshow presentation analysis of what went down in the game.
Around the time I noted this Tweet from a Leeds fan declaring it the best goalkeeping performance they’d seen. My heart did go out to Sluga as he’d played so well and Nathan had even stated that if he’d managed to keep a clean sheet at Elland Road he would’ve paid for his wedding (after doubling down his reward of letting him leave pre-season early to get married for getting one against Swansea).
League Position: 24th (aka bottom)
READING HIT AND WEEP
What followed next was a proper rollercoaster of not just emotions but also our results. We accidentally left the floodgates open against Reading (despite being inches away from taking an early lead) and they duly flooded in five goals. We’d rotated the squad again and tried in vain to ‘go for it’ - which only seemed to make things worse.
League Position: 24th (aka bottom)
With the table looking like this It was at this point I Tweeted this gif…
DEAD BUT NOT BERRY’D
The expected epic six-pointer against Barnsley ended in an unspectacular draw with Barnsley sneaking one back after we’d failed to capitalise on going a goal up in the 13th minute thanks to the returning Luke Berry (who bagged himself MoTM as well against his former club).
At this point I figured we were done and dusted (but writing this retrospectively I’ve treated myself to that sub-header because I like it and it would turn out to be apt if not somewhat confusing).
League Position: 23rd
SONNY SHINING
Cometh the (final) hour, cometh the man (mountain). Against Huddersfield Sonny Bradley got himself on the end of James Bree corner and thumped the header home. That helped settle any “we definitely can’t lose this one” nerves and we set about dismantling a very weak Cowley Brother’s Huddersfield side who, luckily for us, offered little to no objection. Lee followed up on a Collins shot that cannoned back off the post and he smashed it home. 2-0 and yet more away points in the bag. Job. Done.
Outperforming expectations yet again.
This win was made all the more poignant by the fact it meant we’d done the double that season over a team and set of fans who put into verse how amusing it’d be that they were now having to face the prospect of life outside of the top flight and would end up playing the lowly Luton Town away.
Side Note: As @Jamie_Castle96 noted prior to the game - with each subsequent game the number of non-Nathan signings was dwindling in the matchday squad. With one such ‘Nathan-player’ Andrew ‘Shiniesta’, who I used no fewer than 650 words to wax lyrical about in Part 1 of this story, making the starting lineup. Shinnie despite only playing limited Championship minutes this season was still up there with the best passers (see below).
(Any excuse to roll out yet another Shinnie is bloody brilliant chart)
League Position: 22nd
It’s July 12th and we get to watch our ex-flying-full-backs go head-to-head as Jack Stacey’s Bournemouth took on James Justin’s Leicester. Seeing them both in the Prem just felt right.
Off the back of the win against Huddersfield other results started to go our way. Wigan pummeled Hull 9-0 making our match up with the Tigers an all the more appetising prospect and actually pretty miraculously in one fail swoop brought goal difference back into play (at least against Hull). And there were also ongoing talks about Wigan themselves going into administration and the prospect of them being deducted 10 points (although this was far from set in stone and an appeal looked very likely).
Whilst it’s never something you like to see - this was my reaction at the beginning of July.
Birmingham scored against our fellow battlers Charlton in the 93rd minute at St. Andrews to deny them all three points.
The stars, it would seem, were starting to align in a way that meant it could all come down to the final day.
QPR-D LUCK
It’s the 14th of July (my birthday - surely that’s gotta mean something right?!) we faced a mid-table QPR side who had boasted some pretty incredible attacking talent (in the form of Eberechi Eze and Bright Osayi-Samuel) at home.
We took the lead early thanks to a run in behind the defence by James Bree who was than taken down and Collins duly stepped up and converted the penalty. Bree looked an entirely different prospect under Nathan - his new found confidence was clear for all to see. Bree had admitted Nathan had taken him aside and told him some ‘home truths’ about what he needed to do to up his game and told him that he believed he could be the player to step into the boots left vacant at right back by Jack Stacey. It was, it seemed, the catalyst that Bree so desperately needed to believe in his own ability.
Sadly, as is often the way with Luton, as we failed to progress and widen our lead it seemed somewhat inevitable that QPR would sneak back into the game and on the 65th minute they did - the aforementioned Osayi-Samuel flew down the wing and cut the ball across for a simple finish Dominic Ball. Both sides had chances at the death to seal it but thanks to some spectacular goalkeeping at both ends it ended 1-1.
This time ‘luck’ wasn’t on our side (especially as we had a goal disallowed for a reason that I still can’t seem to fathom). In footballing terms this Birthday sucked.
League Position: 23rd
TO HULL AND BACK
It’s the 17th July - the team have traveled to Hull. A Hull side who had flat lined for months in terms of points accumulation. Since selling their two best players, Jarrod Bowen and Kamil Groscki, in the January window to West Ham and West Brom respectively their form had nose dived and the Tigers had managed to accrue just six points from a possible 45 and won only once in that time.
And whilst there seemed no better time than this to head to the North East in search of three season defining points, the odds of overall survival were still massively stacked against us. According to @Experimental361 we had a 14% chance of staying up and although this was massively improved on what it had been it was still, statistically, very unlikely.
But who needs a statistical likelihood when you have Glen Rea returning to your side from injury? This allowed Nathan to play his preferred 4-1-4-1 that was so effective against Swansea. Luke Berry and Pelly Ruddock-Mpanzu acted as the central box-to-box midfield duo. Berry had been excellent since his return to first team football and added a real combative and progressive balance to the side. He, along with Lee, had been very much cast aside by Graeme but here they were playing such a crucial part at the end of our season - looking like accomplished Championship players.
Nathan had pretty much our strongest starting XI on the pitch despite being forced to use the versatile (but still heavily right footed) Martin Cranie at left back deputising for the injured Dan Potts.
Hull threatened in what was a cagey first half for the Town but offered next to nothing in the second (as you can see from Sofacore’s Attack Momentum analysis of the game above) but as the clock ticked down try as hard as we might it looked like a winning goal was going to allude us.
Cue Kazenga LuaLua and his game changing moment. On as a sub/game changer for Harry Cornick on 70 mins he decided enough was enough and that he was taking things into his own (usually champagne laden) hands. A mazy run pre-empted a speculative shot (and when I say speculative, Infogol have it down as having an xG rating of just 3% or 0.03 depending on how you like your numbers) from distance that skidded under Hull’s helpless keeper.
It was in.
85 mins gone and we’d taken the lead.
A lead which we managed to cling onto with both hands until the final whistle.
We’d done it.
It was going down to the final day and it was in our hands.
The team, the management, the staff and the fans at home were all united in their relief and hopeful belief that the great escape may well and truly be on. Regardless of what happened on the final day what Nathan had achieved in such a short space of time since his return was nothing short of staggering.
The league table, if purely taken since his return, had us playing just shy of playoff form (as @TrebleThree shows us). With so much pressure heaped on us we were defying all the odds again and again.
Could we do it one last time (and with Wigan’s point deduction would we even have to)?
League position: 22nd
🎶 HE WENT TO STOKE, WHO GIVES A FUCK, WE’RE LUTON TOWN AND WE’RE STAYING UP 🎶
It’s the 22nd of July - The final day of the Championship season.
@Experimental361’s probability model now has us at a 52% relegation to 48% chance of survival (would ‘Luxit’ happen?).
In points terms it was a little bit simpler - win (with a few other results going our way - see below) and we’d secure a spot in the Championship again for the 2020/21 season.
He stuck with the same line up (and formation) that started the Hull game.
We’d need every single slice of luck that Nathan didn’t get at Stoke.
And… we got it. All of it and more.
It was a game in which we only had one shot on target and managed to score three goals! They scored two own goals (in part down to our pressure and attacking prowess but still!). Collins when taking our penalty slipped and it actually made his shot even better (when does that EVER happen?!).
If anyone wonders what happiness looks like - it’s this. The embrace between Nathan and the man who brought him back (/home) is really something.
If you’re reading this and wanting to relive all the drama of the last day this clip from Sky Sports does a decent goose-bump inducing job of taking you right back there.
I’ve talked about luck a lot throughout this piece and thought I’d flag the commitment of our board to ensure that luck was definitely on our side that final day - I guess some things are too important to leave to chance:
During the game we managed to move (and when I say move I mean jump) out of the bottom three for the first time since December.
League Position: 19th
Here’s what the journey of the season ended up looking like in terms of league position.
Our over-achievement levels, whilst they are somewhat dwarfed by that of the previous season is it clear to see that something happened three quarters of the way through the season to shift the trajectory.
That something, was a man by the name of Nathan Jason Jones - returning to the role that he seemed Bourne to have.
Finally I guess it’d be worth examining what, within Nathan’s approach to things, acted as this catalyst for change and ensured that we eventually maintained our Championship status.
He is, by his own admission, an obsessive in everything he does. He took that methodical and passionate approach, that we were so used to, and tempered it with the composure and understanding of grinding out necessary results. He ensured we were very tight in the first half of games - knowing that if we could keep things sensible for the first 45 we could then start upping the pressure and intensity if and when we needed to.
Of the nine games that comprised his return, we only conceded in the first half of two games (22%) - Reading and the pressure-filled madness of Blackburn. Compared to Graeme’s tenure in which we conceded in the first half in 20 of his 37 games (54%) at the club.
Did we have more possession than under Graeme?
No, in fact we had less. Graeme averaged 47% across his 37 games in charge vs Nathan’s average of just under 43% (possession stats via fbref.com).
Were Nathan’s Luton a lot more free scoring than Graeme’s?
No, we scored less while Nathan was in charge averaging a goal a game compared to Graeme’s 1.16. We also on average created less ‘big chances’ (an xG of over 35% according to @Infogol’s model) - with Nathan averaging 0.78 big chances per game to Graeme’s 0.95.
So what else did notably change?
As well as conceding far fewer goals in the first half we also conceded far fewer goals in general under Nathan - an average of 1.1.3 goals a game compared to Graeme’s 1.92.
This could probably be ascribed to a few key factors:
Firstly, he took over a team in a rich vein of form - for the six final games of Graeme’s tenure his Luton won three, drew two and lost only one (and this included a win against the phenomenal Brentford). Nathan now admits that this was a huge help to him as he just had to keep it going rather than kick starting the team’s form.
Secondly, Nathan got to rely on two players who had a massive impact on whether the Hatters concede or not - the on loan Cameron Carter-Vickers who I’ve called out earlier and our defensive midfield general Glen Rea (who despite getting injured during the final run-in still played a pivotal roll). As you can see from the chart below they are grouped together showing that while they are playing we concede far fewer goals.
Nathan’s Luton were also a reasonable amount (and bear in mind that nine games is statistically very small to draw definite conclusions from) better at limiting other team’s ‘big chances’ (same as the ones mentioned before) - He had the opposition teams down to an average 0.56 big chances per game compared to Graeme’s opponents who averaged 0.76.
Thirdly, team spirit - and whilst this is incredibly hard to actually quantify it was visible for almost all to see. It wasn’t as if Graeme had lost the dressing room and as I said in Part. 1 we had some decent comebacks under him but… Nathan brought a togetherness to the squad that felt very different. He did this by drawing upon unused/neglected members of the squad, re-iterating over and over again that he’d need the entire depth of the squad and that they’d all have a part to play - if not as starters then as “game changers”. And with this team spirit came a level of grit and drive to fightback in games (namely Preston) and shut up shop to see them out (Huddersfield, Hull, Swansea and finally Blackburn).
In terms of what that team spirit looked like - this photo almost perfectly encapsulated it for me.
And fourthly and finally… we got some luck although mathematically both Graeme and Nathan had almost identical numbers on the xG luck front - this was more a rub of the green and a players returning to fitness type luck. Luck that I’m not sure even the most optimistic of the Luton faith really thought was coming. Aside from one Mr. Glen Rea who even January when hope seemed all but lost said this…
And he was right - bad times don’t last.
When Nathan speaks of the circumstances surrounding how he left he talks of wishing he’d handled it better. The journey to Stoke and back was not a pretty one but to be honest, it isn’t one that will live long in the memories of Hatters fans.
Why?
Because although he could’ve handled leaving better, there is almost nothing he could’ve done better when he returned to save us from what seemed an inevitable fate.
“If you employ me, this is what will happen,” I said. “Within four years, you will be a Championship club. And you won’t just be a Championship club – you will be a Championship club playing a certain way with a younger group of players than you have now. We will fill the stadium, we will recruit in a certain way, we will train in a certain way, and we will create a new atmosphere, a new culture.” - Nathan in his piece ‘Philosophical’ for The Coaches Voice
Did he deliver everything he said he would? In a round about way yes. Was it exactly how we all, the board, the fans and himself included, would’ve preferred him to have done it, no. But we got there. Had he not saved us we actually would’ve been a year behind this target - so for him to deliver on it and be true to his word he had to make it a reality. He owed us and himself that and fair fucks to the guy he pulled it off - with help and backing from a truly fantastic board and a wonderful group of players.
I’ll finish this off with a suggestion…
Perhaps the (Gael) clichéd song reference that’s lazily trotted out whenever anyone referees him (even by me as the title of this piece 🙄) should now be updated from Bananarama’s “Nathan Jones… you’ve been gone too long” to the now more apt “Nathan Jones - Happy is a bumpy road” by The Supremes.
Because, despite their being quite the bump in the road, as he admitted to Mark Clemmit in a recent EFL Podcast he’s never been happier and as a Luton fan I’ve got to admit (aside from a longing to return to Kenilworth Road to watch live football) neither have I.
END
For this and other (slightly less waffley) Luton chat follow @LutonAnalytics on Twitter. Also if you want more of this direct in your inbox (hit the subscribe button 👇).
THOSE I DOTH MY HATTERS-SHAPED HAT TO
Massive thanks to all those who’ve helped me pull this together - in particular @CityAnalytica for his insight into Nathan’s time at Stoke and to @Experimental361 who will never read this but without who’s work and diligence writing something like this would be a far harder job - he continues to provide such fantastic resources for ‘finalists’ such as myself.
Also huge thanks to everyone whose Tweets I’ve used to illustrate points and garner insight from - a Twitter list of all the accounts I’ve referenced in this can be found here (and with those referenced in part 1 here).
p.s. pun titles that didn’t quite make it in (for fairly obvious reasons):
Rea of sunshine
Looking in the Rea view mirror
More tea Carter-Vickers
xG-sus Christ’s Superstar
Cor-nicking goals on the break
He’s not the Messiah he’s a very naughty Boyo (couldn’t use it as Oli Walker aka @_olivermpw beat me to it by using it in his Four Four Two season preview).