Rob Edwards crowed “we can do this” after seeing Cauley Woodrow bag a last, late smash-and-grab equaliser at Crystal Palace to reignite Luton’s Premier League survival bid.
The super sub’s header in the sixth minute of added time was his first top-flight goal for a decade – both against the Eagles – but it came when Town should’ve been dead and buried.
It was Town’s 15th goal in the last quarter of matches this season, which only Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham have betted this term.
Palace, on the other hand, have conceded the most late goals (21), so perhaps there was a statistical air of inevitability, but given the Hatters ever-growing injury crisis – with Teden Mengi and Gabriel Osho added to it in this game, while Ross Barkley played on with a broken nose – it was a remarkable result.
Boss Edwards said: “I keep saying it, other teams that are in that mix, they don’t want to be there. They think they shouldn’t be there.
“We understand it at the moment. We knew this was going to be a big, big challenge, coming into it. We’re all in it together and we know what fight we’re in.
“But we can do it, and that’s what I’ve said to the lads in there (dressing room), ‘we can do this, together’.
“That, with everything else going on, players missing, people playing out of position, and young kids coming on as well, we’re finding a way at the end, in the 95+ minute.
“That’s why we’ll be in this fight, and we’ll keep going all the way.”
That they’re providing a fight at the moment is in itself a Goliath effort, as they now potentially only have one recognised fit centre half, in Reece Burke.
So, it was understandable that, on the back of four straight defeats in the league, Luton’s threadbare options looked fatigued.
It left them so impotent in attack that a Carlton Morris volley in the 81st minute was their first shot on target. Their second would be the leveller.
But it was unforced errors in a particularly dispiriting first half which led to Jean-Philippe Mateta’s opener, a cheeky back-heel on 11 minutes after Alfie Doughty’s short backpass.
And Palace could’ve been out of sight by the break. Jordan Clark got away with another hospital pass as the home scorer rounded Thomas Kaminski but could only find the side-netting.
And though Luton improved in the second period and possession stats ended even, it was the Eagles that possessed all the threat.
Odsonne Édouard hit the bar, while Kaminski pulled off a vital save to keep out a point blank Mateta header and Eberechi Eze came within inches of scoring from just inside the Hatters’ half.
So confident was the latter that he even indulged in some showboating towards the end, which would come back to bite him.
With options limited there was a Premier League debut for 18-year-old academy midfielder Zack Nelson, while Woodrow and former Palace man Andros Townsend were also introduced from the bench and they would combine for the unlikeliest equaliser.
Woodrow began the moving, laying off to Townsend who cut inside and swung a sumptuous cross into the danger zone to where the striker glanced in off the post.
Having been not the end of a point stealing late winner for Aston Villa in the previous game, the travelling faithful went ballistic.
And Town escaped from south London with a point that puts them within a win of the last line of Premier League safety occupied by Nottingham Forest, with the two-time European champions visiting Luton on Saturday.
Just as valuable as the point, will be the belief that, despite ever increasing adversity, the Hatters can still pull off the greatest escape of them all.
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