Edwards confident Hatters defender will be better after his testing Erling Haaland experience

​​Luton boss Rob Edwards believes centre half Teden Mengi will become a better player having gone up against one of the best strikers, if not the best, the Premier League has ever seen in Erling Haaland last week.

The Norwegian international was simply unplayable throughout the FA Cup fifth round contest at Kenilworth Road, finding the back of the net five times on the night as Pep Guardiola’s side romped to a 6-2 victory. With the Hatters going man for man against the top flight champions and Champions League winners, it left Mengi with the unenviable task of trying to stop the machine-like Haaland, as a look at his stats showed he was still the best performer from the Town’s back-line, with five clearances, four interceptions and two tackles.

Asked what going through that kind of experience will do for the 21-year-old, who was starting just the 46th game of his own fledgling career, Haaland having played in excess of 250, incredibly scoring more than 200 goals too, Edwards said: “It will be great. We’ve gone back through it and gone back through a few clips where he did some brilliant things and a few bits where I think next time if he was going to come up against it again I think he’ll be better.

"The great thing with Teden is he’s really receptive, he’s a very quick learner. After the last Aston Villa game (in October) there were a few difficult moments and he computed it, learnt from it and then went through a brilliant period where he was just outstanding. Teden’s going to be a top player, that experience the other night will only make him better.

"I thought he was so brave, to go up against him, and we got some things wrong where we could have helped him more, but I’ll own that. I thought he was absolutely brilliant in the way he tried to go about his business against probably along with (Kylian) Mbappé at the moment you’d say the most difficult player to go up against in big spaces or a one v one battle.”