Town's bravery in scoring Lions leveller earns high praise from Edwards as Hatters boss never wants Luton to be a 'boring' side to watch

Town manager Rob Edwards doesn’t ever want his side to become a ‘boring’ team to watch after praising his players for holding their nerve and sticking to the gameplan to ensure they picked up a point against Millwall on Saturday.

Despite the Hatters trailing 2-1 to the Lions with time ticking away at Kenilworth Road in midweek, the hosts refused to just go long against a towering Lions defence, which had been further reinforced by the introduction of Shaun Hutchinson, in the hunt for an equaliser.

Instead they opted to patiently keep hold of the ball, recycling it twice when Millwall got their clearances in, which eventually led to Marvelous Nakamba finding Jordan Clark who in turn picked out the unmarked Luke Berry.

Town’s substitute had found himself a pocket of space on the edge of the box, swivelling to turn and unleash an accurate left-footed shot which beat George Long and nestled into the bottom corner to pick up a point.

Edwards said: “The players have shown real bravery and the game the other day, it depends what the opposition do as well.

"At that stage Millwall are happy to go, ‘okay we’ll sit and we’ll keep what we’ve got,’ and they’ve gone to the back five, Hutchinson has come on as well, a few changes to their shape.

"I can think of the games in the past or since we’ve been in and you think we’ve got to get it forward as quickly as possible all the time.

"We want to play in a positive way, we want to play forward, we want to be on the front foot, we want to play forward and run forward.

"There’s ways to do it, sometimes you’ve got to try and draw the opposition out and try and find some spaces.

"It was pleasing that the players continue to try and play with real bravery but still with an intensity as well.

"The last thing I ever want is for us to be slow and laborious and boring to watch, I don’t want that at all.

"I want us to keep a fast game and we’ll always try and have that, we’ll always try and attack.

"We want to try and score goals, but it was pleasing that we had a variety in our play, so delighted with how the lads are performing at the moment.”

Edwards wasn’t against the idea of being direct if the situation demanded it, but believed that keeping their heads to keep their opponents guessing was the order of the night.

He continued: “What I thought we did very well at that stage, getting towards the latter stages, we tried to continue to mix the game up.

“Whether that was being direct or whether that was trying to be patient to try and draw Millwall out a little bit because they'd gone to a back five at that stage.

"They were happy then to sort of defend and see the game out, which they did well in their previous game against Stoke.

“The patience that the lads showed, the control that we showed, on a number of occasions throughout the night, was very, very pleasing for me and for all of us.

“But, particularly then when it ends up with a goal as well, in the build-up to it.

"Obviously, we go direct into Alfie (Doughty), regain the ball quickly and then I thought Clicker’s pass, the position or Bez, the awareness to turn and obviously the finish was excellent.”

Being able to switch things up is a big part of Town’s attacking intent under Edwards too, as he wants to make sure they aren’t ever one dimensional in their approach, adding: “We want to have variety in our game.

"You can attack around, you can attack through and you can go over.

"What we've been trying to continue to do well and then try and evolve is the different ways and the variety in our attacking play.

"It's the most difficult thing to do, create chances and scoring goals, otherwise everyone would do it every moment, all the time, in every game.

"You've got 11 players trying their hardest to stop you, stop doing what you do well.

"So to try and problem solve and find the space and speed the game up at the right times and create chances is tough to do.

"But I think, especially in the last few games, we've really moved that forward, we've created some really chances with some good play.

"So that's good, we've got to continue to do all the other stuff that we do very, very well.

"The work-rate from the lads and the commitment to have the press and now they win the ball back, and how they defend the goal is never in question.

"We've got to keep doing that, but we want to try and have variety in our play and that was a really good example the other night.”