Remember when you were 12 years old and you played Sunday league against a player that was already a giant with a full-grown beard? That was five-star Erling Haaland against Luton. A monster of a striker.
The Hatters’ FA Cup participation was effectively ended in the third minute when the Manchester City phenom bagged his opener, the first of two tap-ins to kick-start a first-half hat-trick, all of them assisted by Kevin De Bruyne.
Manager Rod Edwards said: “There’s always things we can do better, I’ll look back and go, right, what can I take from it, where can I learn, where can I help s improve, there’s no doubt it, they were incredible, and they played to the space that we gave them and did it very, very well.
“But look, our lads were incredibly brave and bold, and stuck to the task and stuck to what I’m asking them to do and we’re committing to doing and sometimes when you’re quite brave and bold and you come up against that kind of team, you can come unstuck and we did tonight.
“We’re not going to change, we’ve just got to get better, keep improving and we’re not going to come up against that thankfully every week.”
After that blitz, where Haaland could easily have scored two more but for saves from Tim Krul, Town ended the half with a Jordan Clark top corner worldie.
Things got interesting early in the second half when he scored another, walloping a volley past Stefan Ortega. Ross Barkley provided the assist for both, the second a gloriously lofted ball over the visiting defence and, for three minutes, the noise inside Kenilworth Road was transferred from the jubilant City fans – comfortably the best away fans to visit Kenilworth Road this term – to the home faithful.
“We’ve done this on a number of occasions this year,” said Edwards, adding: “We’ve come back from a few goals down. We don’t ever give up. It was unfortunate that we couldn’t get the last goal in the game. We talk about that. Let’s get the last goal, always keep pushing and try to give the fans something to sing about and be proud of.”
But then Haaland tapped in a fourth, again thanks to De Bruyne’s set-up, and faint hopes of a comeback were quickly dashed within three minutes.
Haaland’s fifth was preventable as Krul let the striker’s shot go through him and the Dutchman may be disappointed when he sees replays of Mateo Kovacic’s long ranger, which completed the scoring. Though, had it not been for Luton’s second choice keeper, Haaland could’ve had seven, and City perhaps ten, so, swings and roundabouts.
Edwards said: “At 3-2, we gave ourselves a chance. The fourth goal was disappointing. They’re all disappointing.
“The slip from Clicker for the first goal and we’re 1-0 down after a few minutes after talking about having such a good start. Trying to have a good start in the game.
“The fourth was frustrating and we could’ve been better in that moment, no doubt about it. It’s on me. I’m asking the lads to play this way and, at times, against amazing movement, world-class playing, the timing of the pass and the detail of where it goes, we came unstick a little bit.
“At 4-2 it’s almost game over then when we’d given ourselves a glimmer.”
But the way that City cut Town open time and again showed the gulf in quality, which really came as no surprise from a team sheet containing Haaland and De Bruyne, and one that could lose Jack Grealish to injury without flinching.
Haaland had scored an uncharacteristically low three goals in his last nine before coming to Bedfordshire, but he made up for missing the much closer Premier League contest in December, which Town lost only 2-1.
The Hatters just could not live with him and they were comfortably removed from the FA Cup. Even so, it was bizarre to see referee Anthony Taylor – who did not endear himself to the home faithful – blow his final whistle on 90 minutes and one second, despite the four second half goals, a raft of substitutions. It was time-keeping straight out of Sunday league football.
The hope for Luton – who lost Amari’i Bell to an injury to add to the growing list – will be that, a first thumping of the season, doesn’t have a knock-on effect in the league where they host face Aston Villa on Saturday, hoping to end three defeats on the spin.
“It is disappointing to go out,” said Edwards about the end of Town’s FA Cup run, adding: “We didn’t want to go out. We gave it everything and we didn’t want to. We wanted to win the game. We came up against a much better team in the end and they deservedly went through.
“We have to dust ourselves down, learn quickly, bounce into training and look to try and attack the game on Saturday. It (Villa) is a huge game for us now.”
