Luton chief believes he and his players will come through rough patch stronger

Luton boss Rob Edwards believes that both he and his players will be stronger for coming through the experience of enduring such a tough start to life in the Championship this term.

The Hatters were tipped by many to be pushing for an immediate return to the Premier League after being relegated out of the top flight last term, but it just hasn’t worked out that way so far, with six defeats from their opening 11 games of the season to sit 19th in the table, already eight points adrift of the play-offs.

However, there were huge signs of green shoots appearing last weekend when Town hammered local rivals Watford 3-0 at Kenilworth Road, as although they couldn’t follow that up with another victory, beaten 2-1 by leaders Sunderland on Wednesday night, the performance was up there with one of Luton’s best of the campaign, deserving of at the very least a point, and probably all three.

With the Hatters now starting to resemble the kind of team that had been so impressive when they were last in the second tier and giving off signs that they can still be challenging at the right end of the table this season, Edwards said: “The lads know how we play and how we want to play and we’ve done that consistently for almost two years since we’ve been here.

"Our levels maybe dropped a little bit but the message has never really changed, I just think everyone’s been dealing with a lot, which in a way will be good and will make me and us stronger and better when we come out the other side. It’s an experience and a period of time that I’ve never really had to live through or go through before. I know we’ll be really, really proud when we come out the other side and we’re getting results, performing really well, it will make us all stronger.”

Following the Sheffield United game before the international break in which the Hatters lost 2-0, giving a worryingly limp display that saw Edwards come in for criticism from the travelling supporters, Town were the polar opposite when facing Watford and the Black Cats. The intensity and high press was back, with the crowd feeding off just what they were witnessing from their side as in the lead-up and afterwards, Edwards has noticed an added surge of positivity at the training ground.

The boss continued: “There’s an energy around the place and a vibe around the training. I know I’ve spoken about it, they’re always great the boys, but there has been a difference over the past couple of weeks, which is really encouraging. We lost a game the other night, but we completely dominated it and coming off a few days ago, a really convincing win against Watford in a big game of the season, so the way I see it now I think we’re in good form and there’s a real positive energy around the place.

"The last two performances have been our two best of the season so far. One or two bits went against us, a couple of decisions, but the performance overall, when we reviewed it and spoke to the players, there were a couple of moments where we conceded, but there wasn’t many other mistakes in the game. Other than the first two minutes, we just completely controlled the game.

"The first half, maybe the last time in the (play-off) semi-final against them, I’ve never seen a game that was so much in the opposition’s half and that’s where we wanted to be. I thought our press was amazing, we were really unlucky not to be awarded Carlton Morris’s goal and go one-nil up which would have changed the game, but we didn’t get that. So I’m not going to moan about it or mope about it, we just have to crack on and make sure we stay consistent now.

"Previously when we’ve had success in this league, consistency was what we had and I think we’ve found our level now over the last two games. It’s important now that we maintain that. I’ve talked about that openly in the last week about simplifying our game and getting back to our non-negotiables and what we’re about, what’s brought us success and I think we can all see that. So that’s why I think there’s a good vibe around, even though all right we lost the game the other night, we shouldn’t have, let’s go and try and take this form into the game.”

One thing that the Hatters will need to do is brush up on their crossing accuracy though, as they sent in 44 deliveries against the Black Cats, but only 10 were successful, as he added: “You’re not going to have 45 crosses and 44 successful. With crossing there’s always something you’re not going to have as much success from, but it is an area that was a big focus for us in our review, areas to hit, numbers to arrive with and areas for those numbers to try and be in and land on.

"So that’s something that we know we can improve on. When we’re at our best, it’s obvious and has been for a long time, we are a crossing team, and that’s not difficult to see when you watch us. So we probably just dropped our level a little bit with the quality of crossing, of the 22 outfield crosses that we had, we averaged over three people in the box, so the numbers were okay and decent.

"We can still try and get more and push more people forward if we can. We also locked the game down well and stopped any real counter threat for large periods as well, so I was so happy with so much of it. It wasn’t perfect obviously as we lost the game, and didn’t quite convert a lot of the threats and good opportunities that we created, so that’s something we need to improve on.”