IN eight days Luton will become the 51st team to play Premier League football and they have already been written off before a ball has even been kicked.
Odds-on favourites for relegation, absolutely no one outside of Kenilworth Road gives them a prayer of lasting more than a year in the top flight.
Luton secured promotion via the play-offs last season
Can Luton bring shocks like Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang
Because clubs like the Hatters are not supposed to dine at English football’s top table.
Direct, up and at ’em footballers in a crappy, dilapidated stadium earning the kind of money most big-time pros would not get out of bed for.
A football throwback the likes of which we haven’t seen since Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang were upsetting the established order all those years ago.
Which is why we should all be relishing this forthcoming flight of fancy.
For Luton have already defied all logic by hauling themselves back from the blink of oblivion after five years in the National League.
Their entire wage bill last season was £7.5million. To put that into some kind of context, that’s what Kevin De Bruyne gets every four months from Manchester City.
Their manager was sacked by Watford after 11 games in charge and their 10,356-capacity stadium will be the smallest ground ever to host Premier League football.
They have spent as much this summer on updating facilities to accommodate the Sky cameras as they have on new players.
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And they are also the only club overseeing the development of two grounds at the same time as they plough on with plans to move to a new home.
When you put all that together, it’s no wonder everyone has concluded that they don’t stand a chance against the Chelseas of this world.
But that doesn’t take into account the incredible fighting spirit of a club which refused to die when they were hit with a record 30-point deduction for transfer irregularities and going into administration in 2009.
For the past ten years they have made a habit of defying the odds and that’s why it would be madness to dismiss their chances this season.
No one gave Bournemouth a hope when they were first promoted to the top flight in 2015 and who would ever have predicted that Brentford would be pushing for Europe within two years of debuting in the Premier League?
None of the three promoted teams were relegated last season so maybe the gap between the top divisions isn’t quite as big as we all thought.
What is certain is that no visiting team will relish the spartan facilities and hostile crowd breathing down their necks at Kenilworth Road.
Of course the history of the Premier League is littered with tales of one-season wonders like Swindon, Barnsley and Blackpool.
But even if Luton do only last a year, they will still secure the kind of money that they could only dream of not so very long ago to help finance their new stadium.
So whatever happens in the coming months, it’s going to be an experience that their players and supporters will cherish for all time.
And after what they’ve been through to get to this point, no one can begrudge them this walk on the wild side.
Kenilworth Road will host Prem football this season
ZE KING OF DIGS
ONE of the great pleasures of the summer is watching Brighton’s constant trolling of Chelsea over their Moises Caicedo pursuit.
No one has perfected the art better than boss Roberto De Zerbi when he said: “If Moises leaves we have to replace him with a great player as this year we play in the Europa League . . . unlike Chelsea.”
Brighton rejected a £70million bid for Caicedo from Arsenal in January, since then he has signed a new contract to 2027.
Yet Chelsea still came in with an opening offer of £60m and got the hump when it was rebuffed.
This is the club, don’t forget, who paid £106m for Enzo Fernandez and £88m for Mykhailo Mudryk.
Everyone in football knows Seagulls chairman Tony Bloom does not do haggling — and always holds out for the full asking price.
So if Chelsea want Caicedo as much as it appears, they are going to have to stop messing about and cough up.
FAKIN’ IT TO MAX!
ROUGH-ARSED Geordies were apparently moved to tears by Allan Saint-Maximin’s departing love letter to Newcastle.
The Brazilian winger poured out his heart and declared: “Once a Geordie, always a Geordie. This story never stops.”
Except it very much does stop. The minute he completed his impending move to Saudi Arabia.
If he loved the place even half as much as he claims, he’d stay and fight for his place in the team.
Allan Saint-Maximin will join Al-Ahli
BOWLED FOGEYS
IS the Moral Victory Cup going to be as good as it gets for Bazball?
Everyone outside Oz agrees that England were the better team during the drawn Ashes series.
But with Stuart Broad and Moeen Ali now retired, Jimmy Anderson on his last legs, Mark Wood and Ben Stokes hobbling like a couple of pensioners and Jofra Archer a crock, the bowling department is looking a bit threadbare.
OFFENSIVE ACT
RED faces all round in Milan at the World Fencing Championships when Olga Kharlan of Ukraine defeated Russia’s Anna Smirnova.
According to the rules of fencing, the fight is not considered to be over until the opponents shake hands with each other.
And because Kharlan was not going to extend the hand of friendship to anyone who was representing her nation’s invaders, she was disqualified.
Yet that hasn’t prevented Russia from trying to get round their Olympic ban by staging an alternative ‘World Friendship Games’ next year.
And they are even planning to invite Ukraine to participate in the event.
Well, good luck with that one, Vladimir.
BENN IN DOUBT
CONOR BENN is free to box again in Britain after being cleared over two positive drug tests by the UK Anti-Doping agency.
Yet there has still been no explanation for what happened when traces of the banned substance clomiphene were detected in his system.
And until that mystery is cleared up, Benn will always be fighting under a cloud of suspicion.
Conor Benn can box again
