Luton boss Edwards happy with Town's first half efforts during pre-season

Luton boss Rob Edwards has been left pleased with plenty of what he has seen from Town’s efforts during the first halves of their three pre-season games to date.

The Hatters started by beating Stevenage 3-0 at The Brache over a week ago, when Carlton Morris and Tahith Chong netted in the opening 45 minutes, Joe Taylor then grabbing a third after the break. Town have stepped up their level of opposition since, as they faced Danish Superliga side AGF in another behind closed doors clash at the weekend, Morris on target again to make it 1-1 at the break, Uwe Rosler’s side then scoring in the second period to claim a 2-1 victory.

Luton’s third match to date was while on their warm weather training camp in Slovenia as they took on Ruhk Lviv yesterday, Morris again showing he has lost none of his goalscoring touch when finding the net once more in the opening 45 minutes, Edwards’ side then closing the success out despite making a plethora of alterations in the second 45.

Discussing Town’s efforts so far, the Hatters chief told the club’s official website: “It’s always nice to win football matches. We've had three good performances, three good first halves and then obviously in pre-season you make a lot of changes and the games lose their rhythm. I’ve been pleased with big elements of the first halves, we've dominated all the games and looked a threat.

"We know we're going to have more control now because of the way that we play, the way that we press, we’ll have more of the ball and we've got to try and keep creating chances. A lot of our work is making sure we can get behind teams, get good numbers forward, take risks. I saw a lot of good stuff against an athletic Ukrainian team that were aggressive and tried to press, so a lot of good things and still a lot of things to work on.”

Edwards has demanded his side look to attack the Championship this season and he felt Morris’s goal after good work from Alfie Doughty and Tahith Chong further demonstrated showed their intent to get forward. They might have added to their lead in the opening period too, Morris fouled inside the area, only for Cauley Woodrow to see his penalty saved, but a satisfied Hatters manager continued: “We looked a real threat for a good chunk of that first half.

"Our reactions were good as soon as we lost it, but the goal was pleasing. You can see the patterns and things we're working on in training, that was a really good example of it and then it was a really good bit of play for the penalty as well. So some excellent things with the ball in tough conditions, the pitch is really good, but once it dries up it’s just inevitable it slows the game down a little bit and we want to try and play very fast football.”

Town have a few more days out in Slovenia and another friendly against Turkish side Göztepe on Saturday before heading back to England where they will continue their pre-season preparations with matches against Dundee United and La Liga side Celta Vigo on the horizon. On getting another good week behind them, Edwards added: “I love this place, I think it's great.

"The surroundings are amazing and they really look after us well. The training facilities have been spot on again, food's great, it’s just good to be together with everybody and keep building on the good work that we’ve put in over this last 18 months since we've been here. It’s been a good half a week, we want to try and finish it off strongly. We'll recover well and then have a good couple of days preparing for Saturday’s game.”