Luton chief hails Adebayo's character as Town striker recovers from penalty miss to net Bluebirds winner

Luton boss Rob Edwards hailed match-winner Elijah Adebayo’s character after he recovered from missing a penalty to score the only goal of the game in Town’s 1-0 win over Cardiff City last night.

The 25-year-old had gone close in the first half with a header saved by Ryan Allsop, before with 20 minutes left, he had the perfect chance to beat the former Wycombe stopper, winning a spotkick after Cedric Kipre handballed his flick inside the area.

Despite converting from 12 yards in the 2-2 draw with Grimsby on Saturday, Adebayo’s effort was under-hit this time, and shovelled around the post by Allsop, as the Bluebirds, under new manager Sabri Lamouchi, looked destined to take a point back to Wales.

However, in the closing stages, Alfie Doughty sent over an inviting cross from the left and there was Adebayo to bury his close range header beyond the diving keeper and claim just a fourth home win of the season for the Hatters.

Speaking afterwards, Edwards said: “It’s a really good win.

"It was a really difficult game as you could all see.

"Sabri is new in and it’s always difficult to go up against a new manager, a really experienced coach, good coach, he had a bit of time to get to work with them as well.

"It was going to be really hard to break them down, we knew that.

"I thought we went with the right intentions, we tried to do the right things, we tried to mix our game up, tried to play around them and at times try and go over or into our strikers.

"We did create chances and half chances and almost moments, lots of crosses flashed across, couldn't quite get on the end of it, and then we missed the pen, you start to think maybe it's not our day today.

"But I’m delighted for Eli, I’ve just told him, the character he’s shown there to be in the right place at the time after missing the penalty, is excellent.

“It takes a brave person to step up and take the pen.

"He scored one the other day, he didn’t today, that’s no problem, but I'm delighted for him, because we got a great reaction and he’s found the winning goal.”

Adebayo’s goal when it came saw him perfectly positioned in the centre of the goal to outmuscle Mark McGuinness and reach Doughty’s cross to be on the scoresheet for the fifth successive game.

On whether he can even add more goals of that nature, Edwards continued: “There’s always areas that any player can keep working on and improving.

"Eli’s a young player that has got so much talent, so much athleticism, a fantastic attitude, and he will keep improving, because of those things.

"Of course there’s still areas that he can keep working on, but we’re delighted with the moment that he’s in currently and because he’s working so hard, he’s earning it.”

With both Adebayo and Carlton Morris upfront, now with 19 goals between them this season, then Edwards knows that whatever the moment in the game, Town will have a chance of registering on the scoresheet as they continued their run of finding the net in every game since he has taken over.

He added: “There’s always a chance and we’ve got to keep believing and keep asking the questions.

"I want more people in the box at the right times, we’ve got to keep working on that.

"I want us to be braver, we are, I’m seeing outside centre backs overlapping, seeing us getting at people one v one, getting crosses in the box, but we need to try and keep working on suffocating teams and committing.

"I’m seeing lots of good things, there’s still elements to keep working on, but I’ve got to reiterate it again, Cardiff, I know they’re on a difficult run in terms of results, but all of their games are tight.

"They don’t concede many goals and it was always going to be a really difficult game for us, so I’m delighted with the three points.”