Edwards left concerned by Luton's inability to find the net during Carabao Cup exit

Luton boss Rob Edwards was left rightly concerned by his side’s inability to score during their Carabao Cup third round exit at League One side Exeter City on Tuesday night.

The Hatters have found goals increasingly hard to come by in the Premier League this term, which due to the massive step up in quality from the Championship, can be considered fair enough.

Mads Andersen’s stoppage time header against West Ham United is the only time Town have netted from open play in five matches, as their other two have come courtesy of Carlton Morris penalties.

Having put three past League Two Gillingham in the last round of the competition, Luton then headed to St James Park yesterday to take on a Grecians side who had been beaten 3-0 at Oxford on Saturday, while a fledgling City team were also absolutely hammered 9-0 during their EFL Trophy contest with Reading just seven days earlier.

Town had started well in Devon, Luke Berry’s effort from distance tipped over by keeper Viljami Sinisalo, the woodwork preventing Cauley Woodrow from notching his second of the campaign, as Elijah Adebayo was also denied by the home stopper.

After that though, the visitors went on to have plenty of possession over 80 percent at one point in the first half, eventually finishing with 67 percent by the full time whistle, but it wasn’t until Jacob Brown came on midway through the second period that Luton forced Sinisalo into action again, the Scottish international heading straight at the keeper from Ryan Giles’ left wing cross.

Edwards’ side paid the price when Issa Kabore’s mistake was pounced on by Deme Mitchell for the winner with seven minutes left, as Luton managed just to put just three of their 12 shots target, a stat that is becoming a worrying theme now.

On Saturday against Wolves, they managed just four on goal from 20 attempts, as a look at the Hatters’ attacking efforts since the season began, shows that from 88 shots, only 20 have been on target, six of them coming against the Gills, with Luton managing just six goals, half of those in the 3-2 victory over their League Two opponents.

It led Edwards to say: “There’s elements of the game there that are a concern for me as, and it’s on me and all of us, we’ve got to be better in that final third, we’ve got to find a way to score goals.

"We had more than enough there to win the game, the possession, the shots, 10 shots inside the box, you’ve got to do more with that.

“It’s difficult when there’s so many bodies behind the ball to break that down, but that’s an area that we certainly need to be better in.

"We had half moments and those half moments have got to be real quality and a goal comes from a half chance, or we need more when we get the ball into dangerous areas to find someone, or more desire when the ball comes in with quality to get on the end of it.”

With Luton now having a crunch top flight game at an Everton side who are just three points above them this weekend, Edwards wants his players to ensure they don’t dwell on the result, adding: “There’s areas to improve on, we’ll pick ourselves up, it’s just a tough night, it’s not like we’re going through a tough period.

"There’s been some good performances and I’ve talked about that the last few weeks, but certainly we’ve got to pick ourselves up very, very quickly as we’ve got a big game at the weekend

“In the bigger picture, the grander scheme of things, we’ve been building over the last few weeks and looking a lot more positive.

"We’ve been a lot more competitive in the games and that’s what we’ve got to do on Saturday.”