A standing ovation for a home defeat is a rare thing but Kenilworth Road’s reaction to Luton’s smash-and-grab heartbreak against runaway Championship leaders Burnley spoke far louder than the scoreline.
Hatters boss Rob Edwards soaked up the atmosphere at the end, even after his ten men had departed up the tunnel, and that’s because the fans recognised how excellent their team had been.
The manager said: “There’s ways to lose games and that’s how you lose a game of football, by leaving it all out there. That’s why all the fans were there and clapping the lads at the end. If they didn’t see that intensity and that passion, that desire to run and fight for the club, they would let us know. But they saw it today, from everyone.”
The killer moment came in the 78th minute when Gabriel Osho handled in the area and Ashley Barnes stroked confidently in from the spot. The Clarets will be in the Premier League next season, but they weren’t leading the charge in this contest, even after Hatters skipper Tom Lockyer had earned two quick-fire yellow cards and his marching orders for his protestations at a third spot-kick conceded in consecutive games.
As of late, that’s the only way teams can take points from Town, as they’ve not conceded from open play in the Championship for over a month but, in a sense, that made this defeat even harder to take.
Edwards said: “(It’s) another penalty. Look, I’m so proud of the lads today. I thought, after getting back at four on Thursday morning after a tough night at Preston, a quick turnaround and then going up against, comfortably, the best team in the league, and putting on a performance like that, I’m so proud of the lads.”
Despite Lockyer’s protestations, Edwards admitted it was a penalty, but said: “I think we can deal with the initial free-kick better, that’s all. We learn from it. We’re human beings, there’s going to be one or two mistakes, but there were very few out there today.
“The lads gave everything. Ran so hard, fought so hard. We were never going to turn up here and give Burnley the game they want. They’re too good for that. They’re too good for us to sit off and say, ‘go on, you have the ball’.
“We’ve got to go after them, make it difficult, make it really hard, suffocate them and I thought the lads were unbelievable today with their energy.”
That’s not to say that Luton carved open at will the best defence in the division, but it was the Hatters that played on the front foot, pressing the Clarets back, led by the outstanding Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu and, in the first half especially, Elijah Adebayo.
It was just unfortunate that when the two combined on 37 minutes, with the midfielder cutting back from the byline, the striker scuffed his effort over.
Edwards said: “I know it was a game of few chances but the one big chance we created was a great bit of play. It wouldn’t happen often for them.
“I’m giving them a lot of credit by the way because I’ve got massive amounts of respect for them, but they’ve had a free-kick and a penalty as their shots on target.
“We limited a really top team to very few chances and we could’ve done better in the one big moment that we had, of course.”
But, such was Town’s perseverance that even with reduced personnel, with the increasingly influential Lockyer back in the dressing room, they were the better team.
Edwards said of the sending-off: “It was high emotion out there, a big game for both teams. The game is emotional, isn’t it? Maybe he’s made a couple of errors in judgement but I know he’s been fantastic for us since we’ve come in through the door.
“He was amazing today, so we’ll miss him for a game, but when we went down to ten men we were excellent again.”
The ten men pushed and probed for a point that they at very least deserved, but it was not to be. Yet, even in defeat, there was a sense in LU4 – and that standing ovation after the whistle to prove it – that something special is happening, even if they’re currently paying the penalty.
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