Luton boss deflects praise on to players after his impressive start to life at Kenilworth Road

Town boss Rob Edwards was quick to deflect the praise on to his players after learning of his achievement of having the fifth best record of Luton managers who have completed 10 league games in charge of the club.

The Hatters chief, who replaced Nathan Jones in November, was on course to be number one after six wins and two defeats from his opening eight matches, but two draws against Coventry and Preston saw him sitting behind Ned Liddell, Richard Money, Alec Stock and Paul Buckle, although both Money and Buckle were appointed when Luton were in non-league.

Game 11 finished in a 1-0 defeat to Burnley, but when told of the stat, Edwards, who has been in charge for just over four months now, said: “It’s nice but a big, big credit to the players and, again, all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes to try and keep things consistent.

“When the changeover happened, I thought everyone handled it really, really well.

"I said it beforehand, how well Nathan and all of the guys have done for this football club.

“It was a case of us trying to try to continue that really good work and that's all we're trying to do at the moment.

“Game number 11 was a loss so we got to pick ourselves back up again and get back to winning ways.”

Town will be looking to record a seventh win of Edwards’ league tenure at Birmingham this afternoon and to do so will need to breach a Blues defence containing one of the Luton manager’s old team-mates, goalkeeper John Ruddy.

They pair were together at Norwich City in the the 2010-11 season, as Edwards continued: “I played with John and I think I’ve worked with him as a coach as well.

"So we keep in touch a little bit every now and again as well.

"He's a fantastic bloke, really good player and what career he's had.

“He’s someone I've got a lot of time for and he's been great this year.

"It'd be nice to see him but hopefully he's not too happy after the game.”

Meanwhile, City boss John Eustace has his own problems to deal with at the moment, Birmingham on a run of three straight defeats and only just outside the relegation zone, seven points from safety.

Edwards added: “John’s someone that we came up against each other when we were at Telford and Kidderminster a number of years ago.

"It’s really nice to see him doing well because I know they've had difficult circumstances, off the pitch as well he's been having to deal with other things.

"I think the way he's handled himself and the football club and what he's done is exemplary.

“He’s done a really good job this year.

"Obviously earlier in the season with Watford we played against them earlier in the season at St Andrew’s, so I’ve come up against John a few times.

"I’ve played against him over the years as well a few times, he was a really good player.

"It’ll be nice to see him at the weekend.”