Edwards pleased as Luton extend their Premier League scoring streak to eight matches
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Luton boss Rob Edwards praised the way in which his side have found their scoring touch in the Premier League this season.
At the start of the campaign, Town quite understandably found goals hard to come by as they began their adventure in the top flight by only netting three times in their opening five matches, two of them coming from the penalty spot against Brighton & Hove Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers. They have dramatically improved their potency in the final third since though, scoring in all of their last eight matches since the 1-0 defeat at Manchester United, including firing three past both Arsenal and Sheffield United in recent weeks.
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Hide AdHaving also netted in their three matches before the Old Trafford trip, it means the Hatters have been on target in 11 from 12 fixtures, which has led to Town securing a hugely 12 important points in their battle to stay up. On his side’s improvement, Edwards said: “It’s good, I’m really pleased with that and we’ve got different ways of doing it as well. Clearly we’ve been strong from set-pieces, but we have been creating chances and scoring goals from open play. We want to continue to do more and are working hard on that, getting behind teams and trying to create more chances, arriving in better numbers in the box.
"It’s difficult, but we know we can improve on that. We’re working really hard to do it. We want to try and be exciting to watch and we’re working hard on attacking and trying to win games of football, but we’re in the toughest league in the world. The lads have been excellent, they've been really, really good, but they know as well, there’s more we can do, we can still keep improving and getting better.
Edwards has also charged his side with trying to score in the first half as well, having netted just a mere six before the break compared to 18 afterwards this term, continuing: “It is good, and it’s probably is quite unique for a promoted team to have that many goals late on, but we recognise what we want to try and get that first one more. We do want to score more goals early on, we want to try and start quickly, but we’re going up against top teams that don’t want you to either, they want to try and start fast, so it has been a common trend that has occurred over the first half of the season, but hopefully we can get a few more early on and continue to get some late as well.”
The last two league games have seen Town have the majority of possession, enjoying 62 percent in their 1-1 draw against Burnley, plus 51 percent when losing out 3-2 to Chelsea before the turn of the year. Considering that had been way down at 33 percent when heading to Stamford Bridge back in August for a 3-0 reverse, then the fact Town’s work on the training ground to be better on the ball is paying off on a match day, is something Edwards is pleased to see.
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Hide AdHe added: “I’ve been banging the drum and saying we are evolving, we are changing and I think people are probably seeing that a little bit more the last couple of months or so. Certainly the last few weeks, performance levels have been really high, and there was so much to like in the game (at Turf Moor).
"I think it shows how far we’ve come. Going up there against a team that do like to have the ball and want to dominate, we didn’t allow that to happen, but we didn’t win the game, so we’ve got to make sure we’re good with the ball when we’ve got it as well. First half we were, I thought we slowed it down a bit too much in the second half, but ultimately I was really pleased and proud of the performance.”