Kovacs pleased to see Town maintain their title challenge

Victory over Woking on Wednesday kept Town challenging at the top end of the season much to the relief of first goalscorer Janos Kovacs, writes Mark Wood.

With the division’s other top teams also winning, Kovacs was pleased Town kept pace with their 3-1 win.

He said: “This season, we were always in and around the top five. We had two or three times when we had the chance to go top and we we didn’t do it.

“But as long as we are up there we’ve got a chance. I really hope that one day it will happen and we will go top.

“But we just need to work hard and we need to focus on ourselves because it will come if you get results and you don’t need to worry about the other teams.

“Straight after the final whistle I’m checking the results, but we need to focus on ourselves.

“We don’t need to focus on them we need to focus on ourselves and sooner or later if you perform like we did today and show a proper strong team performance then we will be fine.”

And he was pleased with the way his side had played during critical times of the game, especially as they refused to crumble when the Cards pulled a goal back to make it 2-1 in the second half.

He continued: “In football I think, these kind of times when you score and when you concede and the next five, 10 minutes, and of course early in the game, first five, 10 minutes, and second half first five, 10 minutes are very important.

“How you react and everything will decide in those first five, 10 minutes. And I’m pretty sure a few weeks earlier, maybe a few months earlier, we would draw this game.

“I think we showed enough character today when we conceded a goal to come back again and score the third one, which settled the game.

“Yeah they still had a little bit of pressure on us after the third goal.

“But these kind of times are very important that we need leaders, we need characters on the pitch to stay together whatever happens.

“Even if we concede the first goal and we are going 1-0 down, come back and win it.”

His powerful first half header had set the Hatters on course for victory, and he admitted getting an early goal can really help.

“This is one of the biggest things at Luton with the home games because everyone expects us to get on the game and not score straight away, but play nice football and score a few goals early in the game if we can,” he said.

“It’s always nice if you can get a goal in the first 10, 15 minutes, but to be fair last home game against Alfreton it was 0-0 at half time. We came out in the second half and we scored three quick goals.

“Of course it’s always easier for us to settle into the game if we can score, but we just need to know what we are doing.

“I think especially in the last two home games we showed we know what we are doing and sooner or later we will score.

“Especially homes games are important, every game is important. If you can get on a good run at any time, but especially Christmas time it can help your season.

“So hopefully we can get on a good run and we will be fine.”

Having seen Saturday’s match at AFC Telford United postponed due to a waterlogged pitch, Kovacs was just relieved to be back playing again as part of the potentially make-or-break festive season.

He said: “To be fair it was frustrating for me we didn’t play on Saturday, because the last game before that was against Matlock, which was like one and a half weeks ago.

“So I don’t like to wait too much. So of course it’s not that nice if you’ve got Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday for like a month and you play like six, eight games in a month’s time.

“It’s not nice for your body. I like it if games are coming thick and fast so that’s why I like Christmas time as well.

“And they’re saying it’s very important in every league this is maybe the most important time of the year to do well.

“And if you can do it and pick up enough points at this time, then you can be flying up the table.”

His partnership with Simon Ainge is also beginning to come together at the back, as Kovacs added: “Of course. If you play games together then of course it helps.

“And to be fair in my eyes Simon Ainge had a fantastic game today. He was a rock at the back and it was easy to play next to him.

“I was very happy and to be fair he’s a good lad, we talk after sessions, after games, it’s very important to get to know each other.

“Not just how you play, but on the personal side as well. So hopefully we can build a very good partnership, which will help us, the team, and the club. That’s the aim.”

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