Hatters chief warns his players they could face the chop after 'appalling' defending at Carrow Road

​​Hatters boss Rob Edwards admitted that some of his players could be in their last chance saloon after the manner of Town’s defending during their 4-2 defeat at the hands of Norwich City on Saturday.

​Having broken the deadlock for only the third time on the road this term when Elijah Adebayo showed his predatory instincts to take advantage of Jordan Clark’s pressing and beat Angus Gunn from close range, Luton were then pegged back five minutes later, errors from Teden Mengi and Thomas Kaminski seeing Ante Crnac level. Tahith Chong was then the main culprit as City went ahead, inexplicably trying to let a long ball go out for a goal kick, ex-Hatter Jack Stacey nipping in to cross for an unmarked Crnac to make it 2-1.

With Jordan Brown equalising early in the second period from close range, Luton were on course for a point that Edwards felt was the very least they deserved until the final nine minutes. This time it was Mark McGuinness who missed his tackle allowing the Canaries to score again, Amari'i Bell quickly beaten for the fourth as Town left empty-handed for the sixth away game in a row

Edwards laid the blame firmly at his players door in his post match interview and asked if a few of them could be on their final chance, he said: “There’s one or two that are around a lot of goals and we’ve got to make sure we’re looking at that and then pick the right ones. It’s not good enough and today wasn’t a team thing. The plan was good, we were aggressive but kept a plus one on the back line for the majority of the time, so there was a solidity there.

"You can see how we conceded the goals, it wasn't a team thing, it was an individual thing. We’re in control of that moment, I don’t know what to say about it. If you get an opportunity to clear the ball, clear it. safety first in that scenario.​​​​​​ We’ve seen that then at least in the second half, there were a couple of moments where we could have taken the ball but we cleared it and you can understand it as we didn’t do it for those two moments. But still the defending for the third and fourth goal was appalling, so we go back to the drawing board. We try and show them, work at it on the grass then they’ve got to do it.”

The Town chief had made a change at the half time interval, taking off Chong, who had struggled to deal with Stacey for the entire 45 minutes and only completed three passes himself, for Victor Moses, as the boss continued: “We weren’t quite able to lock this left side down at times, their right, just Chongy get narrow and Amari’i take the wide one. We got that information to Victor and we did that in the second half and he made a good impact, but it still wasn’t enough to get something from the game.

“We created as many big chances as they did. They’ve had six shots on target and four goals, we’ve created a lot of big chances. We actually did the other night as well (at Leeds), but we’re not taking enough and obviously not keeping them out at the other end.

With Edwards having usually taken responsibility for such results in the past, this time it was different as he refused to apologise for the performance, declaring the players needed to be culpable for their errors. On why he opted to do that, he added: “I always try and speak the truth, speak how I feel, say what I think and what I feel. I’ve told them exactly the same, it’s nothing that I’ve not said in the dressing room, but we’ve got to make better decisions and not make catastrophic errors that we’re making that we’re getting punished for.

"It’s very lonely when you’re stood here (dug-out) and very frustrating when you’re stood here as you can’t control that and really, really angry about it. It’s not a different way, but they just have to take responsibility for it, there’s no doubt. No-one can hide behind me and say ‘it’s all right, it’s just on him,’ the ones that go over that line have got to produce.”