Jones hails 'absolutely outstanding' Mpanzu after Addicks win

Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu is challenged during Tuesday night's 2-1 win over Charlton

With the Hatters trailing 1-0 to Jonathan Leko’s early strike, it was Mpanzu who restored parity shortly afterwards, thundering home on his left foot after Izzy Brown’s cross was only half cleared.

It was a 16th goal in 224 games for the former West Ham youngster, who is yet to be on the losing side when finding the net during his lengthy Town career, signing for the club back in December 2013.

After missing the recent 3-0 defeat at Reading for 'tactical reasons', Mpanzu was restored to the starting line-up for the 2-1 defeat to Leeds United at the weekend, keeping his place in midweek and is now surely one of the first names on the teamsheet as Luton look to stay in the Championship this term.

Jones said: “He was like a Premier League striker, left foot finish, wrong foot and I thought Pelly was our man of the match tonight without singling anybody out.

“I thought he was absolutely outstanding, but I thought he was on Saturday too (against Leeds).

“Pelly Ruddock is someone who has shown now he’s a Championship player, the guy’s incredible.

“He goes through the leagues, take a little bit of time to adapt, never changes his playing character, is confident, but intelligent, a lot more intelligent than anybody gives him credit for.

“I was delighted with his performance, but it would been unfair to single anybody out as the boys to a man were outstanding.”

Team-mate Brown, who went on to notch the second half winner that saw Luton end their run of five straight defeats, was also impressed by Mpanzu’s second goal of the season.

He joked: “It was lucky finish! Pell’s been unbelievable the last few games, we do a lot of shooting week in week out, me and him are always getting on to each other.

“I think I hit two shots in the game, one went to the corner flag and another nowhere near, so I knew if I didn’t score, he would be on to me.

“It was great that he scored, he just swung his left foot and it went in, nothing special! No it was great from him.”