Hatters boss doesn't find the prospect of facing record-breaking Aston Villa as 'scary'

Town boss Rob Edwards doesn’t feel like it’s a ‘scary’ prospect heading to an Aston Villa side who are currently in an unbelievable record-breaking spell of form tomorrow.

The Hatters make the trip to Villa Park to face a side led by former Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain boss Unai Emery who are in stunning form on home soil this term, with four wins from four, scoring 17 goals, hammering six against Brighton and fourth past both West Ham and Everton.

That carries on from another seven last season to make it 11 successive victories in total, as the Villains have managed to find the net 31 times, conceding just five in that sequence, the first time they have ever won so many in a row in front of their own fans since they reached 13 in 1983, some 40 years ago.

However, after all that was put to him, Edwards refuted any suggestion his side would be fearful, saying: “No it’s not scary, this is why we wanted to be here, if I was scared I’d be in the wrong business.

"I’m looking forward to it and the lads are as well, we’re well aware of the goals that they’re scoring at the moment.

"They’re free-flowing, really clear with and without the ball, well coached with good players, so it’s a tough game isn’t it, but this is what we wanted.

"We all wanted to be here, it’s one to go and try to enjoy, work extremely hard and we’ll have to be better than we were last week at Nottingham Forest, no doubt about it, but there’s no doubt we can get something from it as well.

“We’re going to come up against really, really good teams this year and people with good records who are doing well at home, whatever, it’s a brilliant challenge.

"I’m really, really enjoying it, it’s making me batter and I’m having to think more.

"We’ll go into it always believing that we can get something from any game."It’s a great game for us, we all celebrated at Wembley as we all wanted to be in the Premier League.

"We’re here now, there’s no point being fearful or worried, let’s try and attack the challenge, let’s embrace it, enjoy it, and that’s sometimes easier said than done, but I’d rather be here than not.”

Leading the line for Villa is former Brentford and Exeter attacker Ollie Watkins, the England international already up to 10 strikes this season, with seven in his last eight matches for club and country, bagging hat-tricks against both Brighton & Hove Albion and Hibernian.

They also have Douglas Luiz and Leon Bailey on six, with Jhon Duran netting four, as on the challenge of keeping them under wraps, Edwards continued: “A lot of teams have found that hard at the moment.

"We’ve got to make sure we defend as an 11, every single person when we haven’t got the ball, defend really well as a team.

"We’ll have a clear plan, everyone will know their roles, responsibilities and jobs on the day and we’ve got to really carry them out well.

"We know to get something from this game we’ve got to perform really well, maybe they’ve got to have a bit of an off day as well, but we’ve got to be at it.

"We’ve got to all defend together to stop those top players they’ve got.

"We’re well aware of the size of the challenge, the size of the test, a really big football club that’s on the up, a brilliant manager, who’s really intelligent and will see what’s going on, a team that are full of very good players that are confident at the moment.

"But like we have with every game we’ll go into it believing we have a good plan to try and get something from it as well.”

Villa’s good form isn't just restricted to games at home as well, with Emery’s side putting four past Dutch side AZ Alkmaar in their Europa League group stage clash on Thursday night on their way to a 4-1 victory.

One thing it does mean is that having not played since Saturday themselves, Town have had a far quieter preparation for the match, with the Villains having to fly out to the Netherlands and back again.

It’s something Edwards hopes could go in his team’s favour, as he said: “That’s one thing that we can hang on to as well.

"I’ll look for any little thing I can, but they’ve got a win and a draw after their European exploits so far this season.

"They’ve beaten Chelsea and drawn with Wolves away, so I don’t think it’s affected them too much.

"They're all very fit athletes, he made a few changes as well, but certainly we’ve had more time to prepare for this game than they had.

“The main thing for us is showing energy and commitment from the first moment against anyone,

"It depends how we look to try and play and set up tactically, but we always have to make sure we’re running hard otherwise we don’t stand a chance.”

Although most in the football fraternity will be anticipating home win number 12 is on the cards tomorrow, the fact that Luton are being written off before the match has even started isn’t something that Edwards will be dwelling on himself.

He added: “I don’t think of it like that, I just look at it and think this is what we’ve got ahead of us.

"We’ll try to have a plan, try our best to win a game of football and the outside influences we can’t affect.

"That’s fine, everyone will have their opinions, I get that, Aston Villa are in great form at the moment, they’ll be favourites in most games at home at the moment against most teams, so it’s no problem.

"It is a big task, we’re going up against one of the most in-form teams in the league.

"They made a few changes in Europe and went and won comfortably as well against a tough team, so I understand where people will view us in the game.

"That’s all right, I don't think it makes things any easier at all.

"But we certainly don’t think we want to prove people wrong, we just want to do a job and try to get as many points as we can, this is the next opportunity to do that.”