Town chief happy with response from Luton squad after Boro defeat

Luton boss Rob Edwards believes his players have responded in the right manner to the 2-1 defeat at Middlesbrough in his first game in charge recently ahead of a congested Christmas schedule.

Having taken over in mid-November, Edwards then had to wait for just over three weeks to see his new charges in action, as they headed to Teesside and were looking on course for a battling point until Amari’i Bell was sent off with 18 minutes to go, home sub Matt Crooks then scoring the winner in stoppage time.

On how the squad reacted in training ahead of a run of four matches in a fortnight, starting at home to Norwich City on Boxing Day, Town’s boss said: “The group have been great.

"We were obviously disappointed to lose the game, especially in the 91st, 92nd minute whatever it was because we’d given so much.

"Credit to Middlesbrough they played well, especially in that second half and when we went down to 10 men it did make things difficult.

"The response has been brilliant from the players though.

"We’re never going to be too down because we know we are going to get knocks, we know we are going to lose football matches.

"We don’t want to lose many but it is going to happen at some stage so it’s important you don’t get too down, you have to bounce back and we have to learn from it quickly.

"We were pleased with a lot of aspects of the game last week, especially in the first half.

"We saw lots of good things.

"Of course we want to create more, we want to be more of a threat but Middlesbrough is a difficult place to go at the moment, they certainly have a good thing going and they have some momentum.

"Like I said, for large spells in the game we were very, very good and we can take the positives from that.”

With Luton sitting out last weekend after their home clash with Millwall was postponed due to a frozen pitch, the Hatters dropped to 15th in the table and are now four points behind the top six with a game in hand.

Edwards wants his side to make sure they are challenging for a play-off place for the second season running, although knows that will be difficult, adding: “Of course we want to be in touch, every game is important and we would love to be in touch come the end of the season.

"We have said that from day one but there is also double figures of teams that all feel the same as well, it’s a really competitive league.”