Edwards hopes prior experience of beating Hornets will boost Town's players

Hatters boss Rob Edwards believes the fact that Luton have a number of players in their squad who have experienced the joys of a derby day victory over sworn enemies Watford could act in their favour when facing the Hornets tomorrow.

When the Hertfordshire club last rocked up at their near-neighbours in Harry Potter buses back in April 2023, they were soon beating a hasty retreat with tails firmly between their legs, Gabe Osho and Allan Campbell on target to ensure the hosts ran out comfortable 2-0 winners in front of what was a red-hot Kenilworth Road crowd.

Although both goalscorers have since left the club, Town still have six members of the starting XI in their squad, Marvelous Nakamba, Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu, Alfie Doughty, Carlton Morris, Elijah Adebayo and Amari’ Bell, the latter unfortunately out injured, with a further four more, Reece Burke, Cauley Woodrow, James Shea and Joe Taylor, named on the bench that day.

For the Hornets, they have five players from the team that kicked off remaining, Daniel Bachmann, Jeremy Ngakia, Ryan Porteous, Imran Louza and Ken Sema, although only two of them, Porteous and Sema were involved in their last game, a 2-1 success over Middlesbrough. Quizzed on whether that could be a factor to boost the Hatters, Edwards said: “Yes, and it’s been healthy this week that the players have been able to talk about it themselves, what it means. They’ve experienced both sides of it, a lot of the lads, winning and losing.

"We’ve got a lot of lads who have grown up in this country and know what derby games mean in this country and have played in this fixture as well. So it’s not been difficult to sell to the lads what it means to everybody and I do think it helps. They’ve experienced both sides, the win in April that’s when we were here and the difficult side of it as well in losing the game (4-0 in October 2022). We don’t want to feel like that so we know what we’ve got to try and do.”

There is also a change in the dug-out for the visitors too, former Manchester United midfielder Tom Cleverley having been appointed in March of this year. He replaced Valerien Ismael, although the former West Bromwich Albion and Barnsley boss hadn’t even led the Hornets into action that day, Chris Wilder in charge, who like so many Hornets managers, including Edwards himself, were given a short stint in the hot-seat before being fired by owner Gino Pozzo.

Cleverley appears to get getting things right, Watford sitting in sixth position with five wins from nine, something that wasn’t a shock to Edwards, who had the ex-England player in his squad during that brief 11-match tenure, as he continued: “He’s done a very good job, it’s not a surprise. I was lucky enough to work with him when he was a player and he was a top professional.

"It’s no surprise at all the job that he’s doing. He’s a really intelligent guy, very, very experienced, an amazing playing career. Because he’s intelligent, eloquent, understands the game really well, I’m sure he’ll have a very successful career as a manager. It’s started off very well.”

Although that game just over 18 months was watched by 10,046 fans, it felt and sounded like thousands more, such was the noise generated by those in orange. On trying to recreate that kind of atmosphere again going into the game, and with an already increased attendance due to the stadium improvements that happened while being in the Premier League last term, Edwards said: “It was a great performance, a really good day. Obviously this is a different day and I understand that as well, but certainly the crowd were incredible that day.

"The players and the fans fed off each other, so I’m well aware that you can’t just go, ‘go on fans, just make sure you turn up and make all the noise.’ I’m sure they will do, but then they’re going to want to see the fire from the boys as well and that is really, really important, especially on derby day. We can’t control the supporters, but we can control what we do on the pitch.

"How hard we work, how many duels we win, how hard we fight, and the fans will respond from that. That’s what they want to see. Our fans are really intelligent and they get it. Unfortunately, we can never guarantee that we’re going to win the game, but we need to guarantee the other stuff tomorrow, that’s a must.”