Edwards quickly wipes City loss from his memory as he targets Luton's final five games

Luton boss Rob Edwards admitted he had put the 5-1 defeat to Manchester City behind him by the time he reached the changing room at the Etihad this afternoon.

Town went into the game against the treble winners as the clear underdogs, with only one recognised centre half, Reece Burke, in their back-line, as they looked set for a tough afternoon when Daiki Hashioka unfortunately deflected home Erling Haaland’s off target volley inside the opening 90 seconds. To their credit, Luton’s defence then stood firm for the rest of the half, as they didn’t concede again until midway through the second period, Mateo Kovacic powering home a first time effort from a corner.

Haaland added a penalty on 78 minutes before the moment the 3,000 Luton fans in attendance who had made the trip in hope rather than expectation had dreamed of, Ross Barkley finding the net to make it 3-1. City’s quality then came flooding through in the closing stages, Jeremy Doku scoring a superb individual goal and Josko Gvardiol picking out the top corner. With Nottingham Forest held to a 1-1 draw by Wolves, it meant Luton only dropped one point behind their nearest relegation rivals and now have fine winnable games left to go now, three at Kenilworth Road.

It meant Edwards was already focusing on next weekend at home to Brentford, where he might have a bigger squad to select from, as he said: “Today was always going to be very difficult. Without sounding very defeatist, I’d almost made peace with it at the beginning. We wanted a good performance, we wanted to try and come out with some belief and confidence for the final five games.

"I know the scoreline suggests that they were the dominant team, of course they were, they were better, they thoroughly deserved it, they were amazing, but we stayed in the game as long as we could. We knew we were going to be forced low, we wanted to try and be aggressive and even in the first minute we tried, then Haaland’s through one-on-one, the ball almost knocks Hashi out for the first goal, and we’re thinking, wow, there’s one of our few defenders on the floor knocked out and we’re one down after a minute, what a start that is.

"It’s tough, but Hashi managed to battle on and I’m proud of the lads, they gave us everything. Today was never going to knock us or derail us, anything like that. I wiped it as soon as I walked into the changing room after the players. They’re disappointed, of course, no-one likes losing, no-one likes losing five-one, but let’s be realistic.

"They’re a brilliant team, way ahead of us at the moment, and our back four consisted of one centre back, one full back and two wingers, it’s always going to be difficult against that level of opposition. Hopefully we get some bodies back, we’re going to need them and now we’ve got five games where we believe we can win. I’m not saying we’re going to, but we can get results.”