Luton extended their unbeaten run to five matches with a competitive but largely uneventful 0-0 draw against West Bromwich Albion at The Hawthorns on Saturday. Here are our takeaways from the game:
Horvath helps himself to another clean sheet to confirm number one status
2022 has been the year of goalkeeping issues for the Hatters. Injuries and the departure of Simon Sluga meant they were forced to use no fewer than six stoppers throughout last term. It was an issue which Nathan Jones moved swiftly to fix in the summer.
He confessed prior to the trip to The Hawthorns that one of the summer signings, Matt Macey, had effectively dropped down to third choice with Harry Isted preferred on the bench for the last four matches including the clash with West Brom.
There can be no doubt about who his number one is though. That is on loan USA international Ethan Horvath, who registered a fifth clean sheet in 13 matches and who is starting to look at home behind the Hatters defence.
The Colorado-born stopper looked a little edgy in the early games of the season but with every appearance he makes his confidence is increasing. He started to dominate his box at Hull last week and his handling against a big West Brom team was spot on. He came for a number of crosses into the box and made a couple of saves to deny the Baggies the opening goal. Touch wood, Luton have their goalkeeping issues sorted for the time being.
Lockyer proves his versatility which could be vital
News broke in the lead up to this fixture that the injury which Reece Burke suffered at Hull eight days prior to it will keep him out for a number of weeks. With Gabe Osho also injured it was James Bree who filled in on the right side of the three for the eventful draw with Huddersfield in midweek, however Tom Lockyer occupied that role at The Hawthorns with captain Sonny Bradley return to the starting 11 to take his central spot.
Lockyer has been one of the standout players in the back line for the Hatters so far this term, with him excelling in the centre of the three, however he was just as good on the right side on Saturday, keeping the dangerous Grady Diangana in check.
With Town starting to suffer for personnel in that right-sided spot, the versatility of Lockyer could prove vital in the coming weeks, and could be what gets him into the Wales squad for the World Cup.
Morris and Adebayo link up continuing to take shape
There were signs against Huddersfield in midweek that the relationship between Carlton Morris and Elijah Adebayo was about to start to flourish with the former assisting the latter for his brace of strikes and there was further evidence of it at The Hawthorns.
Against an astute defensive unit, the two strikers played much closer together and Luton almost opened the scoring when Adebayo fed Morris in the opening period, only for the forward to find the side of the net rather than the back of it.
Nevertheless, you get the impression the more that the two hotshots play with each other the better they are going to get as a pairing, and that spells danger for the rest of the Championship.
Draw a better result than it looked
On the face of it, a 0-0 draw away to a side who are third from bottom in the table and who have only won one of their opening 13 games doesn’t look much of a result, but it might be that when we look back on it at the end of the campaign it is a decent point. West Brom started with a front three of Grady Diangana, Jed Wallace and Brandon Thomas-Asante. They brought Karlan Grant and John Swift off the bench and kept the likes of Tom Rogic and Adam Reach on it while injuries kept Kyle Bartley, Daryl Dike and Semi Ajayi out of the squad completely.
Man for man, that is as good a set of players as you’ll find in this league and it is only a matter of time before West Brom click into gear.
For Luton to restrict the home side to precious little in terms of chances throughout the 90 minutes spoke volumes of the defensive qualities that they have and should give them belief that they can go toe-to-toe with anyone in this division. With three big matches over the next fortnight this boost to their confidence could be invaluable.
