Proud Edwards relieved to see Luton swiftly overcome woeful Swans display to beat Potters

Luton boss Rob Edwards was incredibly proud of the way in which his side were able to turn around their bitterly disappointing showing at home to Swansea City on Saturday in a matter of days when producing a morale-boosting 2-1 victory against Stoke City last night.

At the weekend, the Hatters’ efforts in earning a 1-1 draw at Kenilworth Road soil had been met with a huge amount of criticism and apathy from home supporters following what was a one-paced and laborious showing, dominated in all aspects by their opponents, particularly in possession, the Swans having around 65 percent, also managing 20 shots, 10 on target, Town escaping with a point thanks to the heroics of Thomas Kaminski.

In fact a deeper look at the stats made for some alarming reading, Luton only having eight shots themselves, with two on target, sending in just 19 crosses, Tom Krauß having 62 touches, 50 less than he visitors’ top performer in Matt Grimes, only Victor Moses and Jordan Clark managing over 50. With only a few days to alter things for Stoke last night and the same squad of players available to him, minus the injured Amari’i Bell, Edwards made two changes, bringing in Tahith Chong and Jacob Brown.

What followed was by no means a perfect outing, but still a far, far better showing for the 10,500 in attendance, as even after falling behind early on to Tom Cannon’s strike, the Hatters looked much more creative and had a real intent about them. That was born out in their 18 shots, eight on target, with Clark alone sending in 20 of the hosts’ 39 crosses, the midfielder managing one more than his entire team had done at the weekend.

They also had seven players with more than 50 touches this time, Victor Moses producing a game high total of 83, as on just how Luton were able to change things so drastically and speedily, Edwards said: “It’s been a big challenge, a lot of thought goes into it, a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of work from everybody, not just me, the whole group, everyone.

"Then it’s trying to get the right messages across to the players without overloading them with information because at the moment, that’s probably not what they need. It’s trying to get the right bits there, to them, that they can handle and trying to frame it in the right way for them to feel a bit freer, for them to take more risks. So the messaging has been the biggest challenge, and to not pick loads of faults in what was a difficult performance on the weekend.

"There were still good things there that we tried to show, there were things here that we didn’t do well that we had to put on them and say we need more of that, but trying to find a balance in the message was a big challenge. I’m really proud of how we’ve been able to turn that around in a few days. There was still a few there tonight (mistakes), we haven’t eradicated that, I don’t think we are for a while. Again, it’s hard with a number of defenders we’ve got out and players missing, but there were still a few errors that didn’t get punished, but there were better basics.”

One thing Edwards had called for in his pre-match press conference was for his side to take more risks in a bid to get the feelgood factor back at Kenilworth Road. That was on display for the majority of the contest, as even if passes sometimes went astray, they were usually attacking ones, as the boss continued: “They did, we had more of a purpose to us. There was an, even if it didn’t come off, you could see that they were trying, trying to take someone on, or trying to make that overlap, trying to affect them with forward runs.

"We got more numbers in the box, all right the quality of the crossing at times wasn’t quite there, but they were trying to do those right things and we created some really good chances. I think we should have probably scored more than two, but it was enough for us in the end. They were brave and after going 1-0 down as well, didn't go under, showed character, which is some of the stuff that we’ve been speaking about that we’ve struggled with at times this year, so that was really pleasing.”

Having not had more possession than an opposition side since facing West Bromwich Albion on November 1, Luton were on level pegging this time with the Potters. Although not too fussed about such a stat, Edwards was more pleased with what they did with it this time, adding: “We were better on the ball. We were up against a different team tonight, Swansea were always going to have more of the ball than us at the weekend, we knew that, that wasn’t a problem.

"We’d love to have more of the ball, but we had 60 percent of the ball against Burnley in the first game of the season and lost 4-1, so we’ve got to try and get it right and that’s obviously my job and our job to do that. It’s not the be-all and end-all, but we do need to be better with the ball. The other day we were too loose, we turned it over too much, but again, different team, different night. We asked them to play a slightly different way tonight and they took that on board, so that was good.”