It started with a miracle and took a tour through glorious revenge, redemption and record-breaking as Luton claimed a derby day glory against their arch-rivals Watford that had been 17 years in the making. Was it worth the wait? Yes, and so much more. Here are our takeaways from an afternoon of football that will live long in the memory.
Arise, Sir Pelly of Luton
Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu’s involvement in this game was either an early Easter miracle or one of the best team-sheet switcheroos ever played on the derby going public. April Fools indeed!
Exactly three weeks earlier, it looked like Mr Luton’s season finale was over for a second campaign in a row after he hobbled out of Bramall Lane on crutches.
Boss Rob Edwards even feared the worst in his post-match interview, despite having just beaten Sheffield United.
The diagnosis became more positive, until Thursday when Edwards confirmed Mpanzu would play again this season. Still, no-one expected his return to be for the Watford clash.
His name on the team-sheet was a magnificent boost, such has been his sparkling form this term – arguably his best in nine successful years with the club.
Mpanzu provided the assist for Gabriel Osho’s opener, climbed highest in the celebration melee for Allan Campbell’s second and made sure to wave goodbye to the travelling Watford contingent before departing heroically and triumphantly down the Kenilworth Road tunnel – a victor at the grand old stadium against Town’s bitterest rivals for the second home derby in a row.
Speaking afterwards, Edwards said of Mpanzu’s selection: “Did we manage to keep that one quiet from you all (the media)? Yeah, we were worried about him, but we said that we would see him this season. I know you probably didn’t expect it today, but he’s recovered really well. He’s trained well, had a full week’s training and then man’s so important to us and he showed it again today.”
What he showed – not for the first time in his Town tenure – is that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Pelly is a Luton legend.
He’ll more than have deserved a testimonial next term, but why wait? Give that man the keys to the borough of Luton NOW! Stick his name on the side of a bus, start chiselling his statue for Power Court and, in nine months from now, count the number of newborn babies named Pelly!
Osho belts out his own redemption song
The path to glory is never straightforward. After two red cards and a predilection for conceding penalties, there were whispers a few weeks back (well, social media whinges) that Gabriel Osho was a liability.
It was never the case. There’s been a good player there since he arrived at Luton, and under Rob Edwards he’s been firmly finding his feet in one of the most miserly defences in the Championship.
But there’s no better way than to write your name into Luton folklore than to score what was effectively a winner against Watford.
It was a beautiful goal that highlights how accusations of Luton being a long-ball team are wide of the mark. The fact that Osho, a defender, finished off a move begun by his captain, Tom Lockyer, also a centre half, is what Steve Coogan’s genius comedy creation Alan Partridge would call “liquid football”.
But for Osho, after that red-card at Watford and the subsequent rollicking from former boss Nathan Jones, this was redemption. Pure and simple. But extra brownie points for his crybaby celebration in front of the Hornets fans.
Revenge is a dish best served in the red-hot Kenilworth Road cauldron
When the history books are written, in the section of ‘people that couldn’t spot talent if it rocked up on their doorstep’ you can put trigger-happy Watford owner Gino Pozzo alongside Dick Rowe, the record exec that passed on The Beatles, and the publishers who turned down a book about a boy wizard by a writer called JK Rowling (more of Harry Potter later).
The Championship table should’ve already told the Hornets’ hierarchy everything they needed to know about sacking Rob Edwards after 11 games, having promised to back him “come hell or high-water”.
Six places and nine points separated Luton and Watford before this derby. Now it’s 12 points and seven places, with hopes still alive of automatic promotion for Town, and mid-table obscurity for that lot down the M1.
Edwards went into the international break as the second-fastest Luton boss to reach 10 wins, which he did in 16 games.
His name has been sung by Luton fans almost from the moment he arrived at Kenilworth Road in November, 53 days after Pozzo provided his P45 – and Saturday was no different. Better, in fact.
But his short-lived spell at Vicarage Road can now be seen as little more than a minor blip and part of costly hire-and-fire policy that, the Hornets accounts, released yesterday, showed had included £7.8million in pay-offs for managers sacked in a year. That’s before they even file accounts for this season and the three bosses they’ve employed to steer them to the lofty heights of 11th in the league. Incidentally, that’s one place below where Edwards had them before he got the chop.
But enough about them. This match was masterminded by Edwards – a local derby so dominant that his former employees not only managed just one shot on target, but looked positively dejected and overawed throughout, The manager deserved every last second that he soaked up the adulation from Hatters fans after the final whistle. He said afterwards that it made him “emotional”. Yeah, you and 9,001 other Luton supporters inside Kenilworth Road, Rob.
Marvelous by name…
Has there ever been a better Luton loan signing that Marvelous Nakamba?
Has there ever been a more domineering midfield display in a Luton/Watford derby (by the way, please stop calling it the M1 derby. So lame!)?
There’s a strong case to argue that there has not been a better middle-of-the-park masterclass all season in the Championship because, frankly, the stats don’t lie.
Nakamba made ten tackles against the Hornets and no other player has managed that this term in the division.
In the win over Bristol City before the international break, he made nine tackles which means that in Town’s last two games, where the whole team has made 52 tackles, Nakamba is responsible for 36.5 per cent of challenges.
And in his 11 games since joining on loan from Aston Villa, the 29-year-old has only seen Luton concede twice from open play. Even then, against Millwall, Ethan Horvath threw the ball in his own net and Tom Bradshaw’s goal was offside, so they don’t really count.
But, once he’s won the ball, and he nearly always does, his passing accuracy against Watford was 81.8 per cent, including two key passes. In short, Nakamba was here, there and everywhere and the Hornets didn’t know what stung them.
So, has there been a better Luton loan signing?
Well, he’s already got his own song to the tune of ‘Tequila’ by The Champs and, writing in the match programme about his favourite stadium, Nakamba said, ‘Kenilworth Road’ and ‘Villa Park’. This is a man that has played in the Champions League!
But one Hatters Twitterer, @jamotweets, probably said it most succinctly when he replied to the Zimbabwean’s post-match tweet with the hilarious reply, ‘you sir could take my mum to dinner, never call her back and I’d still love you.’
Clean sheet equals 39-year-old record
There was, of course, Nakamba’s shift but also this derby day triumph also confirmed the first time since April 1982 that Luton have won three consecutive home games without conceding in the second tier.
It accounted for keeper Ethan Horvath’s 17th clean sheet of the league campaign, so he’s only two more away from last term’s total. And the American’s race up the pitch to join in the celebrations after Allan Campbell’s goal was a nice touch.
Well, he will have had plenty of energy after he had a cigar on watching Watford rack up an xG of 0.06. And, in its own smaller way, that was his own redemption after that howler at Vicarage Road.
He’s got the key, he’s got the secret…
Rumour has it that when Tom Lockyer got home and emptied his pockets on Saturday night, out tumbled Watford striker Kienan Davis.
There’s a parallel universe in which an alternative version of the defender is deservedly considered the best and most in-form centre half from Wales by the national team’s coach, but in this reality his in nothing short of imperious for his club.
Lockyer is a leader, a king in the dark arts of shithousery, a thou-shalt-not-pass defender that has been part of 15 of Town’s 17 shutouts in the league, and he absolutely loves it!
But, what he gives Luton in defensive solidity, he’s also now adding to in an attacking sense. His one-two with Pelly was inch-perfect for the opening goal, and he got the assist for Allan Campbell’s late strike.
But there was also a daring burst from the back with the ball, where he dribbled past Hornets for fun and it almost opened up all the way to goal. If that had come off, Luton fans would’ve had to get used to watching their heroes in the open air. I mean, fans had done a pretty good job of raising the roof themselves, but that would’ve smashed it to smithereens.
It was enough for boss Edwards to remark afterwards that Lockyer’s efforts were Franz Beckenbauer-esque, which in the space of a fortnight has seen the Welshman compared to the legendary German defender and the equally eulogised Italian centre half Franco Baresi.
Rob Page take note for Wales’ next international.
Campbell is just souper
Last season, Allan Campbell was many people’s – mine included – player of the season, despite Kal Naismith taking the trophy on that.
His debut campaign was remarkable and set the tone for the pressing team that Town have become so noted for, but he has found regular appearances harder to come by under Edwards. It was not for a lack of quality, just merely because Jordan Clark and Pelly were performing out of their skin.
But injuries to both – with the former not involved at all against Watford – has given the Scot his chance and he’s made the most of every second. Which means that his terrace chant, to the tune of Whigfield’s ‘Saturday Night’ has been getting a proper airing. I bet his, Saturday night, like many Luton fans, was one to savour.
Campbell would not let the Hornets rest and, on another day, would’ve had a derby double. Somehow Watford stopper Daniel Bachmann clawed away his first half close range effort.
But, like Osho, he did get to write his name into this fixture’s folklore in time added on, with the goal that confirmed all three points.
But more than that, Campbell’s application and he attitude was everything that Watford lacked. He, and indeed the Luton team, were the epitome of the saying, ‘hard work trumps talent, when talent doesn’t work hard’. But, make no mistake, Campbell’s got both in his locker.
17 years? Well worth the wait.
It’s humbling to think that there would’ve been Hatters in their 20s that had never known the emotions of attending a Watford derby at Kenilworth Road.
We all know the Luton story in the intervening 17 years since fans were last allowed into the fixture, but this was simply a day for the ages. One that those 20-somethings will tell their grandchildren about.
Kenilworth Road has experienced many successes in the last decade, but I’ve never heard a noise like that and it will live long in the memory.
And kudos, also, to the jubilant Hatters that went bananas in front of the press seats when Allan Campbell made it 2-0 because, and this has never happened before, but they banged on the wooden box so ferociously that mine and Mike Simmonds’ (Luton News) laptop plugs were bashed clean out of their sockets. That’s the power of football, baby! If Power Court can add in this admittedly niche feature, I’d be most grateful.
And the smoke bombs – you really shouldn’t encourage it, especially in a wooden stand like the Kenny – but the orange haze didn’t half make for some good photos.
Luton’s successes on and off the pitch have piled up for the best part of a decade, with more than enough celebratory occasions that have atoned for the depths of despair years, circa 2007 to 2014. But there’s a case to say that this day, this performance and that explosion of emotion against that lot down the road, was the match that truly marked that Luton Town Football Club are now officially back where they belong. And with the promise of even more to come, the future’s bright, the future’s orange.
A shift in the order of things, which is just magic!
While Luton are looking up, this is a result which almost certainly means Watford won’t be. Not mathematically, of course, but just about the only noise their travelling contingent made was to boo off their overpaid prima donnas.
They are the toxic opposite of everything Luton are and stand for as a football claub. Hornets fans can’t stand their players, can’t stand their owners and to top it off they arrived at Kenilworth Road in this Harry Potter-sponsored bus monstrosity. I mean, they’re just they’re trolling themselves at this point. It’s a football banter gift form the gods and an embarrassment that Hatters fans won’t let them forget for the rest of their lives.
Sure, even I trolled them. It was that kind of day. Not bothered, mate!
What’s hot and what’s not
OK, let’s not overdo that headline, but credit where it’s due, in a long list of lamentable performances by officials this season, referee Josh Smith was a refreshing blast of competence. He got somewhat conned early on by Ryan Porteous’s play-acting each time Carlton Morris got near him, but he managed the game well, even when Watford showed their only bit of fight in the whole game with some late handbags.
However, quite how the broadcasters came to the decision to screen Blackpool versus Preston North End, when there were so many subplots to this Luton/Watford derby is a pure head-scratcher. Truly bizarre!
But, I guess, it will make the experience of being at Kenilworth Road on April 1st 2023 all the more special. I’m privileged to have been and I’m not ready to go back to normal life just yet.
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Good stuff James. A great day. What a team. Lockyer’s the key. Superb defender and safe as the Bank of England.
Fantastic write up. A day never to be forgotten. Just starting to get my voice back!
I really didn’t think my tweet would get noticed haha