Edwards aware only results can boost Town's brittle confidence now

Hatters boss Rob Edwards insists the only way his side can look to build their wafer-thin confidence levels is by picking up results on the pitch.

The Luton chief saw Town given themselves every chance of doing just that when leading 2-0 after 37 minutes against Oxford United on Tuesday night, Jordan Clark putting them ahead early on, before Tom Krauß added a second. Although that meant the Hatters were clear favourites to record back-to-back victories on home soil, they saw their lead halved on the stroke of half time, Tyler Goodrham curling a terrific strike beyond the despairing dive of Thomas Kaminski.

A half time switch that saw Kyle Edwards introduced for the visitors then proved key as Oxford simply outplayed Luton in every department during the opening half an hour of the second period, levelling through Ruben Rodrigues’ close-range strike on 54 minutes and but for two terrific saves by Kaminski, would no doubt have been taking the points back to the Kassam Stadium.

Liam Walsh’s red card just 36 seconds after coming on oddly moved the game back in Town’s favour for the final quarter of an hour, as the 10 men finished stronger, but having now taken eight points from their opening eight games, and now on run of just three wins from 27 games since the start of February, losing 17 of those fixtures, Edwards knows that only actions on the pitch can rebuild Luton’s confidence which has clearly not recovered since being shot to pieces in the Premier League.

That is easier said than done, Luton facing Sheffield United, Watford, Sunderland, Coventry City and West Bromwich Albion in their next five Championship matches, as on how they can try and get some belief back, Edwards said “It will build won’t it, hopefully with some results. No-one’s got a magic formula with that sort of stuff but I think it was evident tonight.

"At 2-0 up, there was some good stuff, one or two mistakes, that’s fairly normal, but it was a difficult night with the pitch and some decisions to be made and people were a little bit edgy. Certainly once they got that second goal, the lads are human beings and it’s difficult to cope. They’re probably thinking ‘wow, here we go again now,’ but they didn’t go under, they stood up, so hopefully we take a bit from that.

“The way we finished, we’ll try and show them the positives, how we got in the lead in the first place and we’ve got to address those issues. We had that mid-section of the game, mid third of the game where they were the better team, but confidence is not something you just click your fingers and magic up either as well. That’s going to come with us continuing with hard work on the training ground, it’s going to be organised, going to be a little bit more stability and performances, but ultimately it will come from results.”

Following on from Friday night’s 3-1 reverse at Plymouth Argyle, Town’s players had been desperate to make a fast start in front of their own fans, which they got when the impressive Krauß dispossessed Rodrigues inside his own area, Clark taking the ball on to beat Jamie Cumming. Krauß then added the second himself after Reece Burke’s long ball had confused the U’s back-line, Jacob Brown able to tee up the German for his first goal in Luton colours.

How Town had begun proceedings was an aspect that pleased Edwards, who continued: “We wanted to try and build momentum, get belief and confidence, the noise going. Being 2-0 up was good, we still made or two errors that probably kept them feeling like they were in the game, so we’ve got to make sure we keep looking at that, but the start was what we were looking for. I thought the opening section of the game was great, the end probably was as well, it’s just that mid-period, we lost our way.”

The Hatters most certainly did lose their way, relying on Kaminski to save brilliantly from Idris El Mizouni’s deflected attempt in the first half, while the unmarked Goodrham put a glorious chance wide before he made amends in spectacular fashion. After the break, United picked their way through Town with alarming regularity, although thankfully only managed to find the net once, as on the manner in which they got back into the game, Edwards added: “With one minute to go, that lofted switch we probably didn’t need to jump on it.

"It’s almost we broke our line, we haven’t run back quickly enough or closed down quick enough from the opposite side, so very frustrating. They then went with double width, made a change, had the wingers wide and full backs wide and deeper as well, so it was more difficult for us to get the pressure on the ball as we had three in midfield rather than the four that could cover that width.

"We couldn’t get the press on their full backs, so it was a switch of play and we were too exposed down the side for a period of time. We tried to make the adjustment as Edwards made an impact, so get Reuell (Walters) up against him, get Alfie (Doughty) higher so he can deal with the full back, that was the change that we had to make.”