Edwards puts disappointing Brentford display down to an 'off day' from his Hatters side

Hatters boss Rob Edwards put Saturday’s disappointing display by Luton in their timid 3-1 defeat at Brentford down to an ‘off day’ from the visitors.

After hugely encouraging performances against Liverpool, Manchester United and Crystal Palace recently, the Hatters taking four points and conceding just three goals, they got through to half time at the Gtech Stadium unscathed, as although barely registering any attacking intent themselves, it remained goalless.

The withdrawal of Tom Lockyer due to a back injury at the break hit hard though, Town breached twice in the opening 11 minutes, as despite pulling one back through substitute Jacob Brown, they conceded another soft goal as the Bees ran out deserved winners.

Asked why his side had been so off their game, particularly in the early stages of the second half, Edwards said: “I think it was a bit of an off day for us. We’ve created really good chances, more chances against Liverpool for instance than we did here against Brentford, so we just had an off day with the ball and that was my frustration at half time. We needed to be better, we’d been good without it but not good with it.

"It was just one of those days, credit to Brentford and I know we can be better with the ball, it’s just that what it was. They're really good footballers, really well coached, against a team like us they’ll be really aggressive without the ball.

"They'll look to try and smother us and they've got good players, so they can control the ball as well. They ask so many questions set-piece wise when the ball goes dead, really, really good, they can do a bit of everything and I heard Mikel Arteta talking about them as well saying they don’t allow you to get any rhythm in the game. If they don't allow Arsenal it’s going to be hard for us to get any rhythm in the game isnt it as well, we couldn't today.

“We’re disappointed, but I don’t think anyone expected us to come here and win, so all right, that’s it now. We did, but we haven’t.”

The manner of the goals conceded was a definite cause of frustration for Edwards, particularly as they had been so tight at the back when faced with the likes of Mohamed Salah and Marchs Rashford in recent weeks.

This time though, they couldn’t clear their lines on more than one occasion, as Brentford were able to find acres of room in the Hatters’ area to score, none more so than when Ben Mee rose unmarked to head in a corner via Carlton Morris’s deflection.

Going through the way in which his were were breached, Edwards added: “Chongy’s (Tahith Chong) lost possession, the ball’s come in the box, we’ve probably got one player that’s beyond the front post that should be in the middle of the goal, it’s ricocheted off Amari’i (Bell) a little bit of luck and fallen to one of them in front of goal.

"The second one was a set-piece, they’ve got first contact, Gabe got blocked and lost his man Ben Mee and it’s gone in off Carlton, so again another moment that’s not quite gone for us. Third one, just dived inside Andros (Townsend) and Issa Kabore, we got a good block, a good bit of feet from them, but again there’s a little half blocked shot that’s come off Thomas (Kaminski) and fallen to them.

“They've deserved those moments, they've fallen to them in the right places, but again it’s just little things that have fallen for them that didn’t quite go for us. We can be better in those moments, I’m not saying it was just bad luck, but there was an element of that.”