Taylor played 146 matches in total for Luton, scoring 16 goals in the process and helping the team win promotion from the Third Division in the process. Matthew Taylor was named the PFA Player of the Season that year, and was the only Luton player to be named in the PFA Team of the Year in addition. A move in the summer followed, with Taylor out of contract, and Portsmouth swooped for the young left-back. Pompey only had to pay Luton £400,000 due to the ruling of a tribunal. The move was a blow for Luton, because with the departure of Taylor and Valois, plus the retirement of Marvin Johnson, the left side was severely decimated, and Alan Kimble simply wasn't a sufficient replacement for Taylor. However, from Taylor's point of view, his move to Portsmouth was a very successful one, as in his first season in the First Division, he helped Portsmouth win the league and gain promotion to the Premiership for their very first time. This meant that Taylor became one of very few players in recent years to play in all four divisions of the Football League. After five and a half years at Pompey, during which time he played 203 times for Portsmouth, Taylor has now moved on to Jaroslaw Fojut's team, Bolton, for an undisclosed fee. He joins them with an excellent reputation for scoring long range goals (he scored 29 goals for Portsmouth in all competitions, not all of them goal of the season contenders).
The move should mean that Luton get a sell on fee from Portsmouth for Taylor, which would certainly help ease the current financial situation. Despite the sale of Chris Coyne and David Edwards in recent weeks, as well as the departure of Brkovic for a free transfer, it is still unclear whether we need to sell any more players. The gate receipts from the Liverpool match and the money from Coyne and Edwards' transfer, as well as having three wages off the wage bill, will certainly ease the pressure, as will any sell on from the Taylor transfer. However, if we have a long list of creditors to pay off, the money will soon disappear into the black hole left by the previous owners, and costs are still a problem. With the new consortium hopefully in by the end of February, let's hope that too much money won't need to be raised with the possible sales of Brill, Andrew and Talbot. Also, let's hope that the new manager puts a goalkeeper on the bench, possibly even dropping Brill until he has fully recovered from his injury.