Town striker claims Luton would 'lose every single week' if they let going behind affect them

​Luton striker Cauley Woodrow believes his side’s refusal to be downhearted after being breached in the Premier League is a huge reason behind their continued impressive ability to fight back and score so late on.

The Hatters added yet another example to their ever-growing collection during Saturday’s crucial 1-1 draw at Crystal Palace, Woodrow himself on target in the final seconds of stoppage time when flicking home fellow substitute Andros Townsend’s wonderful cross. It puts the Hatters joint third with Manchester City and Spurs for goals scored after the 71st minute, with 15 of them, as they are one behind Arsenal, although some way off Liverpool who have done it 24 times.

Asked why it keeps on happening, Woodrow, who was also on target in injury time when Luton beat Everton in the FA Cup back in January, said: “I think it comes from within and it comes from this whole football club. That’s what the football club has been based on for the last 10 years as that’s the journey of us getting to this division.

"The manager as well, he pushes us constantly every day in training, because we know at times we are going to go goals down and you can’t get disappointed. If you get disappointed then you’re just going to lose every single week if you go a goal down. You’ve got to keep going, keep pushing, the amount of late goals we scored this year is unbelievable. It would be nice if we didn’t have to score late goals, but it just comes from within the group, we never give up.”

The 1-1 draw ended a run of five straight defeats in all competitions for the Hatters, a sequence which had begun to threaten their chances of survival this term. However, it wasn’t getting to the players, as Woodrow continued: “Every point in this league is massive. We weren’t disheartened over the last few weeks as we have played United, Liverpool, City in the cup and then Villa, so we’ve played four of the best teams in this league and some of the best teams in the world.

"We’re not going to get disappointed by that, we’ve just got to keep going. We did come close against Villa, we could have picked up some points there. We weren’t down, we came into this game with fresh minds, fresh heads and it’s a big point for our season.”

With that in mind, Woodrow was looking to make an impact when coming off the bench, admitting the goal was something he had been practising during the week with his team-mates. He said: “It’s always hard when you come on, there’s loads of games this season I’ve come on and not scored, but Andros, Carlton (Morris) and myself were working on that exact goal.

"Andros, when he gets the ball, has got great delivery. He likes to go on his left foot, so I knew he was going to cut back, it was just about timing our runs. I think there were quite a few of us in there waiting for the ball. It fell for me, I managed to flick it on and to see it go in, delighted. It doesn't always happen, doesn't always come off but when I got the ball and played it out wide, I was literally thinking to get in the box and I know what Andros is going to do. There were probably about 10 of us queuing up to flick it into the goal and it landed on me.

“If you ask the manager he probably wishes I did that every week but it’s not always the case. Listen, you’ve just got to do your job and work as hard as you can, the rest of the lads in there starting are knackered so you’ve got to try and do your extra part to help the boys that are a little bit tired, but if you can score a goal that can get you some points, that’s the main thing. I want to do that, on other days it doesn’t happen, but today it did, so I’m really happy.

Town now look to add to their haul of points when they head to AFC Bournemouth this evening, before a huge clash against Nottingham Forest on Saturday. On the two massive games in the fight to stay up, Woodrow added: “The manager has been speaking to us over the last week saying how important this week is going to be for us in terms of three big games and we need to get points.

"So that’s one point, we’re a little bit closer to safety, to where we want to be. When we look back on our season, hopefully we do it comfortably, but if it is the point that we ended it could be a great point. It's a big week for us and we need to pick up points and that's a start.

“The lads that have played most of the minutes have got to recover now and then we’ve got a massive game against Bournemouth that we’ve got to focus on. They’re a good team and have got loads of energy, so we’ve got to go there and be really on our game to get anything. We’re going to be working hard to get points out of the games and hopefully we can go into the (international) break above that dotted line.”