Edwards disappointed his Town players went 'off piece' during Elland Road loss

Luton boss Rob Edwards was left frustrated with his players for coming ‘off piece’ during their 3-0 defeat at Leeds United this evening.

With the Whites looking for a victory that would see them go back to the top of the table, they got a first goal they had threatened from the opening whistle with 10 minutes gone, Sam Byram scoring an impressive scissor kick from inside the area after Town couldn’t clear their lines. It allowed Daniel Farke’s men to settle into silky passing football to the delight of a packed Elland Road and move the Hatters around with ease.

Watching on from the dug-out, a clearly disappointed Edwards said afterwards: “They were the better team, they are the better team at the moment, it looked like that tonight, but I think the frustrations for us are there was a clear plan there and we came off piece at the wrong moment. We pressed at the wrong times and opened up too many spaces in that first 20 minutes or so, where we need to make better decisions.

"We wanted to be aggressive, we wanted to press, that was the message, that’s always the message, but we’ve got to be able to do it at the right moment, right people. Maybe a striker going too soon which meant a midfielder had to jump inside and leave spaces on the outside and they’re good at finding those spaces. Then from the sidelines and with 35,000 people, it's difficult to try and get those changes when we needed to make the good decisions when we're out there.”

Despite being outplayed, it had looked like Luton were going to get through to the interval without any further harm, only to then concede a second in stoppage time from a simple corner routine, Pascal Struijk’s header saved by Thomas Kaminski and Joel Piroe slamming home the rebound. It led to a very comfortable second period, as the new leaders even added a third late on through Dan James.

Edwards continued: “The goals are obviously the thing that people look at. Goals win games and they’re all avoidable, very, very disappointing, particularly the second because I feel like that really right before half time is a real blow. We shouldn’t give the corner away in the first place and then we don’t deal with it, so incredibly frustrating."

Despite Luton’s dominance, the Hatters weren’t without their chances, Victor Moses seeing a chip brilliant cleared off the line by Struijk and Reece Burke putting a close range header wide before the interval. Edwards added: “They did look better (than us), but I suppose if one of those goes in it maybe changes things, the mindset and the atmosphere or whatever, I don’t know. We did have two big chances in that first half, one great clearance and then missed the target with the other. It could have been a different story but it wasn’t.”