For a match which promised emotion off the pitch, it proved gut-wrenching on the turf for Luton and their Premier League survival hopes as they threw away a three-goal half-time lead to lose 4-3 at Bournemouth.
After the last-gasp heroics at Crystal Palace and the focus on Tom Lockyer’s pre-kick-off return to the south-coast scene of his cardiac arrest, Town put themselves in the box seat for the greatest escape of them all with a ruthless display of counter-attacking football.
Tahith Chong, Chiedozie Ogbene and a rocket from Ross Barkley had them temporarily safe and out of the relegation zone only for all their hard work to be spectacularly undone in a second half Bournemouth blitz.
Injury crisis or not, it had been 20 years since a Premier League team last let a 3-0 lead slip to lose and that’s a dispiriting statistic that may, in reality, if not mathmatically, swing the sword of Damocles ever closer.
Because, while the first half showed that Luton can find the net – scoring for the 16th consecutive top-flight game – the psychological damage of their frailties at the other end feel, for now, insurmountable.
“Of course it hurts. We had an opportunity to win a Premier League game. That’s hard for us to do, so of course it hurts now,” said boss Rob Edwards.
“I don’t want to make excuses and I’m not going to. We have enough quality, endeavour and legs to go 3-0 up then we’ve got to be able to do enough and drag a result out in that second half.
“We gave them encouragement in getting an early goal back on 50 minutes. Again, we could have done better initially in the build-up to the set-play, but we’ve got to defend that moment better and we gave them the encouragement and the crowd get up.
“I go back to the same thing. We were the ones to blame. Me. I’m not going to accept that because we’ve got lots of injuries (it’s) because of that.
“I believe in this group of players that went out there and showed they were good enough to get 3-0 up and, from there, we should’ve seen the game out.”
They should have leapfrogged Nottingham Forest to safety ahead of their huge relegation clash at the weekend, instead they exposed their soft underbelly to the two-time European champions.
From minute 50 when Dominic Solanke maintained his record of not drawing a blank for four straight games this term, the nerves set in and swallowed the Hatters whole. Carlton Morris did have a goal ruled out for offside, which may have proved pivotal in stemming the tide that was to wash over Luton so rapidly.
The lead was wiped out in 15 ferocious minutes through Illia Zabarnyi’s header and Antoine Semenyo’s missile. The latter’s winner came seven inevitable minutes from time and there was not a defender near to him as he walloped into the top corner.
The unerring strike laid bare for Luton that it doesn’t matter how many they score if they cannot close the backdoor. But Town have little other option. Their available players are out on their feet and there’s no respite because too many big players are out through injury and are unlikely to return in time to make a difference.
And, yet again, the Hatters lost another player, in Chong, whose grimace told an all too familiar tale as he left the pitch in discomfort. He wasn’t the only one by the time the final whistle came.
The only solace is that Luton, remarkably, still have survival in their hands. Facing Forest at Kenilworth Road on Saturday, always had the feel of a must-win match, and that will only be magnified by the events at the Vitality Stadium.
Edwards told Sky Sports: “If we win on Saturday, we’re out of the bottom three. So, of course I have to believe. We’re not out of this by any stretch of the imagination. We did a lot of good things here tonight.
“It hurts right now and it’s hard to come out and talk and make sense of it all, but we have to believe and I do.”
Somehow his threadbare, knackered and potentially demoralised side must pick themselves off the floor and not only play their third game in a week, but restore some hope with the game of their lives.
