Edwards has nothing but pride in his Luton players following harsh Clarets loss

Luton boss Rob Edwards had nothing but pride for his players despite their 1-0 defeat against runaway Championship leaders Burnley at Kenilworth Road this afternoon.

Going up against a Clarets side were hadn’t been beaten in the league for over four months, scoring in every game since early August, it was the hosts who made all the running in the first period.

Elijah Adebayo and Pell-Ruddock Mpanzu went close from range, before Adebayo missed a glorious chances, skying over the top from eight yards out after great work by Mpanzu.

Although the Clarets came into it more after the break, Town were still more than worthy of a point, only for referee Jeremy Simpson to penalise Gabe Osho for handball in the area, Ashley Barnes drilling home the spotkick.

To make matters worse, skipper Tom Lockyer was sent off for arguing the decision before and after it was taken, receiving two yellows in under 60 seconds, but speaking afterwards, Edwards said: “I’m so proud of the lads today.

“After getting back about four o’clock on Thursday morning after a tough night at Preston, a quick turnaround and then going up against comfortably the best team in the league, and putting on performance like that, I’m so proud of the lads.

“It was a pen, I think we can deal with the initial free kick better, but we learn from it and we’re human beings.

“There’s going to be one or two mistakes, there were very few out there today, the lads gave everything, ran so hard, fought so hard.

“We’re never going to turn up here today and give Burnley the game they want, they’re too good for that, they’re too good for us to sit off and say ‘go on, you have the ball.’

“We’ve got to go after them, we’ve got to make it difficult.

"We’ve got to make a really, really hard, we’ve got to suffocate them and I thought the lads were unbelievable today with their energy

“That’s why Burnley have scored so many late goals this season.

“I know it was a later one today but they do grind teams down.

“We didn't allow them to do that, we asked the boys, they’ve got to give everything, they did it.

"We had some quality as well, I know it was a game of few chances, but the one big chances we had was a great bit of play.

“It wouldn't happen often to them and I’m giving them lots of credit as I've got massive amounts of respect for them, but they had a free kick and a penalty as their shots on target today.

“So we limited a really top team to very few chances and we could have done better in the one big moment we had.”