Luton chief 'concerned' by away form as he puts it on his players to arrest Town's slump

Luton chief Rob Edwards admitted he has been ‘concerned’ about his side's poor away form ahead of their trip to Leeds United, and has put it on the players to arrest their slump at Elland Road this evening.

Although Town’s record at Kenilworth Road has been fairly good recently in recent weeks, with four wins from seven and just one defeat in that time, on their travels it has been an entirely different story, suffering four straight losses, including being hammered 5-1 by Middlesbrough last time out. In fact, Luton have taken just four points from a possible 21 outside of Bedfordshire so far this term, scoring five goals, but conceding a hefty 14, which sees them languishing in the lower reaches of the table.

The Hatters will now try and end their poor sequence or results tonight, although they couldn’t have picked a much harder place to do it, the Whites having lost just once on home soil, with six wins and a draw to their name, only breached five times in those eight fixtures as well. Edwards has placed the responsibility firmly at the door of those he sends out to do battle later though, saying: “I probably wasn’t as concerned about it before the last couple of games, I just think in the last couple we’ve allowed one or two disappointments to then affect us.

"That was why I really hit home the resilience that we showed at the weekend (beating Hull 1-0) and we showed that in the last couple of home games. We’ve got to show that. Our message is consistent now, how we’re trying to go. I need the players to go and deliver that, deliver what they’ve done especially here at Kenilworth Road for a number of weeks, go and do that away from home now, put it on them a little bit. That’s the message from us and they’re hearing that and they know it and they’re saying it themselves as well. They know what the right thing to do is and they’ve got to go and deliver that.”

Whatever happens this evening, Edwards has demanded the Hatters show a far greater amount of resolve than they did at the Riverside Stadium, when they shipped four goals in just 24 minutes either side of half time. He continued: “We could very well get a knock-back, a setback, we’ve got to react in the right way and that’s probably been a big frustration in the last couple of away games, that hasn’t really been us.

"That’s a big thing we’ve spoken about last week building into Saturday’s game and that will be done going forward for the foreseeable future as well. It can’t always go your way, you can’t always get the first goal, can’t always keep clean sheets, but you’ve got to deal with that. Pick your head up and show the right attitude, the right stuff to fight and get back in the game and that’s certainly what we’re looking for.”

With over 30,000 expected to turn out for the contest, then quietening the boisterous home support in the early stages is certainly something that Edwards will be wanting to do. However, he also knows that having done that in previous matches, but still left empty-handed, they have to do so for the entire 90 minutes on this occasion, adding: “We did that well a couple of weeks ago at Middlesbrough for the first 30 minutes, so we’ve got to start, have a strong middle and a good end.

"We weren't able to do that last time, so that’s got to be our aim. We won’t be able to keep them quiet for the whole period of time but when we’re defending and defending low, it’s really dig in and show that character and that fight and do things better than we did on Saturday as well. Like I said after the game, we allowed too many crosses in and there were one or two moments there that we’ve got to be better. We’ve gone through that, shown it, worked on it and hopefully we can be better in those areas as well.”