Town chief tells his players not to feel sorry for themselves ahead of mouthwatering Arsenal and City clashes

Luton chief Rob Edwards has told his players there is no time to feel sorry for themselves after the weekend’s 3-1 defeat at Brentford as he challenged them to finish the week strongly by getting something out of their next two matches.

The only slight issue with that is Town find themselves facing league leaders Arsenal this evening, the Gunners two points clear at the top of the table, and then entertaining champions Manchester City on Sunday, Pep Guardiola’s side now third having drawn 3-3 with Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.

Town’s players saw the momentum gained by a run of four points from three games ended in comprehensive fashion at the Gtech Stadium, but Edwards insists there can’t be any moping around following the below par performance.

He said: “We've got to pick ourselves up, if we feel sorry for ourselves, we’re going to be in trouble on Tuesday aren’t we? We’ve got a couple of really good games coming up and the challenge to the boys now is to pick yourselves up and we’ve got to get something from the rest of this week.

"I know that’s difficult against the two best teams in Arsenal and Man City, but that’s got to be our challenge now.”

To do the unexpected and pick up any kind of positive outcome, Edwards knows full well his team have to perform far, far better then they did in West London on Saturday, second best for large periods of the game, and only really a threat in the final 15 minutes when Jacob Brown netted.

He continued: “We’re well aware, we’ve got to be better, we’ve got to try and stop the ball coming into those dangerous areas first and foremost. Mark, track, block, get in the way, stand up, all of those things, but these are a team that are going to ask so many questions, even more than what we got asked on Saturday, so we know we’re going to have to be better at defending the box.

“We’ve been doing all right, we dipped below our levels in certain levels of the game on Saturday. We’re human beings and in just over the year we’ve been here, the players have been incredibly consistent.

"They’ve been amazing for this football club, but in certain areas on Saturday we made too many errors, weren't quite aggressive enough as we normally are and at this level you get punished. So we’re always trying to get better in every aspect of the game. It wasn’t just in possession that was lacking, there were other things, so we’ve had some good meetings and some good training and are looking to rectify that.”

With the majority of this season a pinch yourself moment for the Hatters, then the next two games are two more examples of that, Town taking on numbers one and three in the Premier League, with players like Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Erling Haaland and Jack Grealish all running out at Kenilworth Road.

Edwards knows the magnitude of what it means to supporters, who had to endure five hard years of non-league football in recent times, adding: “This week, these next couple of games are really exciting for everyone.

"A few years ago, playing against Arsenal and Manchester City in the same week would have felt like a million miles away and not possible, so to be here is amazing. There’s a lot of people that deserve a lot of credit for that, so we’re determined to enjoy it, but of course, our job is to try and be competitive in these games as well, which I believe we will be.

“We’ve been competitive in a lot of the games, we have, and this league is really, really challenging, really tough. Every team has got firepower and some real quality, every team is well coached, every team is difficult to play against and cause you different problems.

"In the main we’ve stood up to it really well, maybe surprised one or two and there’s been a couple of games we’ve found tough. That was always going to be the case, but we’ve learned from the weekend and hopefully we can show a good side of ourselves.”