Keeper Thomas Kaminski earned Luton a point against a vastly superior Swansea side, but boos from Hatters fans at the final whistle told a tale of frustration which boss Rob Edwards labelled a “difficult day”.
Elijah Adebayo put Town ahead – his second in successive matches – but despite Matt Grimes levelling the scores and Swansea looking the only team capable of taking all the points, the home goalie kept out Josh Tymon, Florian Bianchini and Gonçalo Franco. The Hatters also rode their luck.
But it was far from enough to please home supporters, many of whom left before the squad’s usual lap of appreciation while others voiced the dissatisfaction as the final whistle blew.
Edwards said: “It’s never nice to hear, but I understand it. Supporters just want to support the club and want the club to do well and win, perform well and win. So, yes, I’m not concerned by it because in the end, I can’t affect that.
“And I’m learning to try and make sure that my head space is taken up with things that I can affect, not the external stuff.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see, at the moment we’re not playing great. So supporters want the team to play well and win.
“And, unfortunately, in this game if you’re not winning consistently, then they’re going to voice that.
“Doesn’t matter what we’ve done before and what we’ve all achieved together before, it doesn’t matter. So, you can see the disappointment and the anger and the frustration. It’s not nice to hear. Of course it’s not. But it’s got to make us work even harder.”
They’ll have to do that without Teden Mengi and potentially Shandon Baptiste and Amari’i Bell. The first two were omitted from the team sheet, with Edwards admitting afterwards that Mengi will be out for “months” after surgery this morning on a meniscus knee injury. Baptiste has damaged his calf and Bell limped out of the contest, with a suspected hamstring injury.
That was on top of one Hatter suffering a medical emergency in the Kenilworth Road stand before the game that delayed the kick-off by 15 minutes, though it was later revealed that they were stable in hospital.
On the pitch, despite the point, results elsewhere meant Luton’s three-point buffer from the drop zone was cut to two.
That was also the number of shots the hosts managed on target against Swansea’s ten and both of Luton’s came from Adebayo.
After the team were taken to task by Edwards for gifting Norwich four goals last week, the Hatters goalscorer made the most of a present from the Welsh side.
Ben Cabango’s short backpass saw the forward force keeper Lawrence Vigouroux rush out and miss the ball, leaving Adebayo to slide into an empty net from an acute angle.
The stopper got the better of the forward in the second half when he swept Daiki Hashioka’s cross goalwards, but there was precious little else to warm home fans as Storm Darragh did its worst.
But it didn’t seem to deter the visitors as they passed pretty patterns around orange shirts that could scarcely get close to them.
It was hardly surprising that a team renowned for their passing style, with the third highest possession stats in the Championship, managed 65 per cent possession. But it was the lack of ideas and basic ability to pass to each other that will be a concern from a side clearly lacking in confidence.
But despite Kaminski’s heroics – including an eye-catching flying fingertip save from Franco – Swansea still had other chances to win it.
Mostly heart-in-the-mouth for Luton was in added time when Matt Grimes – a menace throughout – was left unmarked but somehow glanced a header wide from six yards out.
Like it was against bottom of the league Hull in their previous home outing, Kaminski’s goal lived a charmed life.
Not blessed enough to stop Grimes from finding the top corner from a training ground corner routine that Town were asleep to.
The midfielder was left alone 18 yards out that the set-piece was fired low to him and he could pick his spot.
That came on 64 minutes so I suppose, if you squint, you can find a positive in the fact that Town did not capitulate in the final 30 minutes, including added time, though it wasn’t for the lack of trying.
Edwards said: “It was really difficult conditions and hard to get any kind of rhythm in the game. Lots of basic mistakes but we found ourselves 1-0 up and OK, fairly solid.
“We were able to chat through a few things at half time and then second half I thought we began OK, similar kind of rhythm, they’re going to try and take the ball but they weren’t hurting us too much.
“We weren’t able to capitalise on one or two half moments, chances, set-pieces that we had, they always retained a threat and I think they deserved the equaliser.
“It’s frustrating from us as someone got their positioning wrong from a corner and allowed that, but if you can’t win it, don’t lose it.
“We got something from the game when clearly we weren’t at our best, you can see no-one is performing at their best so it was tough, a really, really difficult day.”
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