Edwards left frustrated by 'avoidable' Aston Villa goals during Premier League defeat

Luton boss Rob Edwards was left frustrated by the ‘avoidable’ manner in which his side conceded all three goals during their 3-1 Premier League defeat at Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon.

The Hatters had got through the opening 15 minutes unscathed, just, courtesy of a magnificent save by Thomas Kaminski from England striker Ollie Watkins’ close range effort, the Belgian also denying Nicolo Zaniolo as well.

However, he was picking the ball out of the net two minutes later though, when a free kick routine saw Villa load the six yard box, only for Douglas Luiz to play it across the penalty area for the isolated John McGinn.

The Scottish international still had plenty to do, but did it clinically, turning Chiedozie Ogbene and Tom Lockyer, his shot beating Gabe Osho and finding the bottom corner.

Town then once more kept their free-flowing hosts quiet until the break, but as they had done at Nottingham Forest last weekend, were breached just three minutes into the second period, a deep cross nodded back by Leon Bailey, for the unmarked Moussa Diaby to slam home.

Villa added a third on 63 minutes as well, one ball over the top seeing Diaby get the better of Teden Mengi to poke beyond Kaminski, with the recovering Lockyer unable to do anything but turn the ball over the line for an own goal.

Speaking afterwards, Edwards said: “The free kick, we had numbers, we knew they were going to be clever.

"We haven’t got done with anything, we had bodies behind it, we’ve just got to block it, got to get bodies in the way.

"A little chop from McGinn on Chieo, but then we’ve got three or four bodies there between the ball and the goal.

"We’ve got to make sure we block it and we got some good blocks in after that, but it’s frustrating, one clever bit of play, but we’ve got the numbers there to deal with it, and we didn’t.

“All the goals were avoidable and frustrating, second one, the timing, we’ve got to make sure we track.

"We half defend a cross, but we don’t track the runner so it’s a finish from a midfield runner.

"And the third one was one of the straight balls that we spoke about, spoke about at length at half time as well.

"All avoidable, all frustrating, but we learn and go again and try to improve.”

Edwards knows that his players must tighten up the manner in which they were breached by a free-flowing Villa side, and quickly, if they don’t want to become cut adrift in the bottom three, although that is easier said than done when Liverpool are the next opponents at Kenilworth Road on Sunday.

He continued: “We have to (learn), I’ve got to make sure we do that as we’ll probably come up against even better teams, there’s probably another level again in this league.

"So we’ve got to make sure we improve in those moments and that’s going to make us better.

"You’re always going to give something away, if you come out and press you’re going to open up spaces maybe through or behind you.

“We knew what we were giving away, but then we didn’t deal with that well enough maybe five or six times, which was disappointing.”

The Luton boss did concede that coming up against a player like Diaby, who was Villa’s club record signing when joining from Bayer Leverkusen for £51.9m in the summer, was always going to be huge ask, adding: “We keep one man quiet in Watkins and if he doesn’t get you then the other man does.

"Diaby was exceptional today, his movement twice when getting in behind, he is a real threat.

"He can float in, come into some difficult positions in pockets of space but the threat in behind he had was the difference in the game.”