Rob Edwards hailed the “special” Luton Town fans after they stayed behind to cheer his players despite a 3-0 Premier League defeat at Chelsea.
A double for Raheem Sterling and a first strike for summer signing Nicolas Jackson ensured Town remain pointless after two top-flight games, but the scoreline didn’t tell the whole story about a Hatters side that handed for Blues midfielder Ross Barkley a debut and competed for large parts.
More than 3,000 Town fans travelled to Stamford Bridge and the noise they made throughout continued well after the final whistle as the majority stayed behind to voice their approval.
Boss Edwards said: “What I witnessed and felt and saw at the end, I’ve not seen that before. Maybe abroad. The passion they showed, that was special.
“It was emotional, the connection that I feel we’ve got with our supporters now is unique.
“No-one will come here, lose a game of football and their fans do that at the end. Thank you. They were amazing.
“They were amazing because they saw the team compete and give everything as well and I have to stress that. We were right in that game for large spells.
“At home it will be different again. That’s going to be so special now this next week. A couple of home games, a real positive for us. We’ll keep going, keep improving, keep building and we’ll be fine.”
Like against Brighton in the opening game, the Hatters were well in the game despite being behind, though Chelsea dominated the ball, as expected, finishing with 67 per cent of the possession.
That’s not unusual to this Town team who won promotion to the Premier League often with less of the ball at Championship level.
But what the Hatters did not encounter too often in the second tier were what Edwards described before the game as a league full of “killers”.
And Sterling had shown in Chelsea’s first two games that he’s a man on a mission to rediscover his prime after a disappointing debut campaign in west London.
The England international came into the contest having put newly-promoted sides to the sword in recent seasons.
Since the start of the 2020/21 term he’d been involved in 15 goals in 15 Premier League appearances against sides fresh out of the Championship.
His 11 goals and four assists were extended to 13 strikes and five providers.
The first was a sensational piece of dribbling and close control as no Luton defender dared flick a boot at the twinkle-toed forward and he punished that hesitation with a cool finish in the 17th minute.
But any Blues fan expecting a tidal wave would’ve been disappointed as Luton rallied and, after making it to half time just one goal down, started to impose themselves more in the second period.
Edwards told the BBC: “I thought we actually started the better team. I thought it was around 15 minute period where we had the territory.
“Those times you got to try and make something happen. We weren’t able to and then the game becomes a little bit more transitional few spaces open up but it was going to go one way or the other, we were going to score they were.
“They did and at 2-0 it’s very, very difficult for us. Just the detail in that final bit was better than ours tonight.”
Sterling swept home in the 68th minute and then soon after blasted a pinpoint ball across the six-yard area to where Jackson could pounce and make it 3-0.
“There were similarities to how we’ve conceded before, but when you work so hard I’m not going to blame anyone, but we know there’s areas we can work on,” said Edwards.
“That will always be the case, but we have to make sure that we do those basics for 100 minutes so every long it takes and these top teams, they come work us and work us and it becomes difficult, but football is difficult, especially at this level.”
But if Edwards was in any doubt of what Town’s travelling contingent thought, he knew by the time he was back in the dressing room.
“I don’t like losing, none of us do, but there’s ways to lose and when our fans are like that after the game and applauding then we’ve done something right,” he said.
“We were up against a really good team today and it was going to be very difficult for us but I thought we were really brave.
“I’m really proud of the players there’s still areas that we know we’ve got to keep working on we’re a new team as well, we brought in 10 new players and we’re going to keep getting better but I’ve seen improvement in the two weeks from Brighton.
“We were brave tonight. We were aggressive when it could be. We tried to go for them, we tried to take the ball, in the end, both ends of the pitch have just let us down slightly.
“And they were ruthless at the moments and we weren’t. We know there are areas to work on and we know those are the most important bits, that’s where the action happens at both boxes.”
