Hatters boss admits first victory is a 'big relief'

Luton boss Rob Edwards admitted it was a ‘big relief’ to see his side secure a first win of the season when beating Millwall 1-0 at the Den this afternoon, although conceded the victory came in a manner he hadn’t hoped for.

Town took the lead early on when centre half Teden Mengi dispatched a sweetly struck effort from outside the box into the corner of the net right in front of the near 2,000 travelling fans. Although Tahith Chong hit the post in the first half, the Hatters couldn’t make the most of some good attacking positions and were indebted to Belgian international Thomas Kaminski after the break, who saved Macaulay Langstaff’s one-on-one, then terrifically denying Shaun Hutchinson’s thumping header in stoppage time.

The result saw Town climb out of the relegation zone and end a run of 11 games without a win since beating AFC Bournemouth 2-1 in the Premier League on April 4, as speaking afterwards, Edwards said: “It is important, I’ve tried to remain fairly level and look at overall, but of course we needs results and we need points to keep buy-in and belief. We needed it, so it is a big relief, but there’s a bit that’s bugging me, I want to be able to do it better than that.

"We had to battle. It's funny, the worst we played with the ball and everything, but we found a way to win. Winning is obviously important, we know that and I'll never be disrespectful, but the game just became a fight, a scrap, and we had to deal with it really well. That was very, very pleasing that we showed that side of ourselves which we had in abundance when we did get promoted a couple of years ago.

"We are evolving and we are trying to change the team but that has to remain, so that was really good. We've shown a couple of times with clean sheets this season and we didn’t give big chances away in the last couple of games. Thomas had to make a couple of saves today, so there’s an element of frustration as I felt we could have got control of the game.

"I thought there were some really good bits of play in the first half with Chongy and Clicker (Jordan Clark) in those spaces that we’d worked on and looked really threatening. If a second could have arrived it might have taken the game away from them but it didn't and so it became a real slog and not really the game that we want, but in the end we’ve won the game.”