Hatters boss slams 'three minutes of madness' as Luton hand Rangers victory

Luton boss Rob Edwards slammed his side’s ‘three minutes of madness’ that saw them slump to a thoroughly dispiriting 2-1 defeat at home to QPR this evening.

The Hatters had led 1-0 at the break through Jimmy Dunne’s own goal, before the game’s crucial point just before the hour mark, Elijah Adebayo being put clean through on goal by Shandon Baptiste, only to shoot straight at visiting stopper Paul Nardi. Town were made to pay almost instantly, Mark McGuinness failing to deal with a long clearance allowing Michael Frey to show greater desire and strength to find Nicolas Madsen for the leveller on the hour mark.

The R’s then scored again three minutes later when Frey was left unmarked to hammer a volley beyond Kaminski. Edwards almost saw his side snatch a point in stoppage time, Carlton Morris denied by a brilliant save from Nardi, sub Joe Taylor also heading over, but they remain without a win from their opening four games of the Championship.

Speaking afterwards, he said: “It’s on me, and it’s on us, there’s no doubt about it. We put ourselves in a great position to win the game, 1-0 up and I thought playing really well in the first half, I thought we were still in really good control until their first goal. I thought we should have gone 2-0 up, we had a big, big chance, but that can happen. The goals were really disappointing, I've been saying that for too long and again, it's on me, I'm not blaming anyone.

“People can make mistakes, but then there's got to come a point where we've got to deal with the better. We got the press on really, really well, forced them to go long and then we've got to deal with the long ball. Even when we don't we've still got the numbers and the coverage to make sure we deal with it. We don't, it's too easy for them to score the first goal which rocked us for a minute or two. I don't think we should have thrown the ball into Shandon for the second goal and we didn't defend the cross, three minutes of madness have ultimately cost us.”