Luton boss Rob Edwards said he’ll be able to sleep easier tonight after valiant 3-2 defeat to Chelsea but admitted it was still a case of “what if” as a comeback fell short.
The Hatters threw the kitchen sink at the Londoners in a thrilling climax but with 20 minutes remaining they faced with a three-goal mountain to climb, courtesy of a clinical Cole Palmer brace either side of a Noni Madueke rocket.
That, in truth was the difference, as the Blues threatened so rarely, but made it count when they did. In contrast Town, particularly in that all-action finale, battered at Chelsea’s rearguard but couldn’t match them for firepower.
An imperious Ross Barkley header and another from Elijah Adebayo gave Kenilworth Road hope of a memorable comeback after the latter had a goal ruled out for offside and hit the crossbar.
Carlton Morris also clattered the woodwork via the fingertips of Djordje Petrovic as Alfie Doughty and Tahith Chong – impressive off the bench – bombarded the Blues’ box.
But a stingy six minutes of added time proved frustrating, not least because the home faithful felt Chelsea spent somewhere close to that rolling around on the ground. Their time-wasting tactics were employed, bizarrely, when they were already in the lead and relatively comfortable at 2-0.
So they can only wonder and what might have been had they been given expectedly longer to try and enact the best comeback of their season.
“(It was a) little bit of a game of what if, if only. The performance was brilliant though, I know they went 3-0 up, so that probably changes people’s perceptions a little bit, but we were incredibly brave,”said Edwards.
“When we were in the ascendancy, I thought what pleased me most then, was that game could then go one way or another.
“Chelsea could go four, five, six, seven, and we’ve seen that in the Premier League against better teams than us, for the players to then go and do what they did, I think then shows how special they are, so I know we’ve not got anything from the game, but I’ll be able to sleep easier tonight than if we’d have just given up and gone and got beaten four or five.
“We showed fight, we showed heart, we showed loads of quality, we took the ball, had more of the ball than they did and that doesn’t really happen.
“We took the ball and were really brave, we carried on being aggressive and wrestled the game back in terms of a result, we were in the ascendancy. I think we almost wrestled the result back, so (I’m) incredibly proud of the lads.”
Though the finale was electric, Luton were the masters of their own downfall as early as the 12th minute when Issa Kabore’s clearance was more of an assist for Palmer, albeit the England international’s finish was exceptionally ruthless.
The former Manchester City ace’s second on 70 minutes was equally annoying in that it took just one pass to bisect the home defence to give him the chance to waltz past Thomas Kaminski and three covering Hatters defenders.
That made it 3-0 after Madueke had blasted Chelsea’s second late in the first half when there looked precious little space to do so.
Palmer’s decisive effort came against the run of play after Edwards sent on Tahith Chong and Chiedozie Ogbene at the break and both set about putting the frighteners on Chelsea, with a plethora of crosses that far exceeded the efforts of the first half when only the final ball let down Luton.
But, though they pulled two back, agonisingly, the remaining opportunities just would not go in and when they did, VAR pooped the party. But in signing off 2023, it was a performance full of hope that 2024 can still be Luton’s year.
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