Luton boss Rob Edwards has told Hatters to expect the best version of Watford on derby day but insists any knowledge he has of his former team’s weaknesses is trumped by a focus on Town’s talents.
The 40-year-old started the season in charge of the Hornets but was unceremoniously sacked after 11 games, despite summer proclamations of leaving behind their hire and fire tendencies and backing him “come hell or high-water”.
That proved a false dawn and the Vicarage Road axe swung in late September, but by early November Edwards was in the Luton managerial hotseat vacated by Nathan Jones.
While he’s guided Town to the top four in the Championship, tenth-placed Watford are now on their third boss of the campaign after Chris Wilder replaced Edwards’ replacement Slaven Bilic earlier this month.
On the pitch, Luton’s current form is only bettered in the division by runaway leaders Burnley and third-placed Middlesbrough, with four wins in an unbeaten six-game streak, while the Hornets have only won four times this calendar year.
Regardless of that, Edwards expects an uptick in his old side’s form for the first derby day clash in front of fans at Kenilworth Road for 17 years.
“We’re expecting the best version of Watford, don’t worry about that, they’ll be up for it,” said the Town chief.
And while he will arguably have a greater knowledge of the Watford players than their new manager Wilder, Edwards wants to focus on the talents in his side.
He said: “We were there for a short period of time. We can obviously use some of our knowledge of the players, the individuals, but since Chris has come in, he’ll be asking something different.
“We can only go off the three games he’s had so far and he’ll have had another couple of weeks to work with the players, not all of them, because some of them would’ve been away.
“We’ve got a good knowledge of some of the individuals, but that’s all. We’ll try to focus on ourselves. Of course, we’ll look at the opposition, like we will do for any game, but then it’s about what we do. We can control what we do, we can’t control what Watford do in the game.
“We can have plans for different scenarios, which we always do, and we’ve been running through today as we will tomorrow, but we’re only in control of ourselves.”
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