Elijah Adebayo bagged a 90th minute winner to ease the pressure on Luton and shoot them up to 14th in the Championship, with boss Rob Edwards admitting the grandstand finish was “magical”.
Town fans don’t call the striker the Magic Man for nothing and he conjured up a third goal in three consecutive games to cap off a hugely improved performance for the Hatters.
Remarkably, it was also the first time Town have won when forwards Carlton Morris and Adebayo have scored in the same game, with the captain levelling for Luton after an early Tom Cannon opener for Stoke, against the run of play.
Character, bravery, application and a plan, they were all evident here, having gone AWOL on Saturday in a desperate draw with Swansea. It was not perfect against the Potters, but a grasp of the basics set the platform that saw Town taste last-gasp victory for the first time since beating Sheffield Wednesday in September.
“It is great. I don’t think it’s a better feeling,” said Edwards, adding: “It’s a good night for us tonight and it does feel it does feel great. And it changes the mood somehow.
“You know, if we’d just if we just scored in the 70th minute and then seen the game out 2-1, I don’t think the feel around the place would have felt as good as it it does now.
“And in that dressing room was it was really lively after at the end. So there is something magical about a last minute winner. Yeah, a really good feeling.”
It stretched Town’s home record to five unbeaten, but was comfortably their best home performance since dispatching arch-rivals Watford in October.
Despite that run at Kenilworth Road, it was the performance, or lack thereof, on Saturday against Swansea which sparked boos and added to the sense of disillusionment among supporters. But against Stoke, there were significant shoots of recovery. It wasn’t a complete performance, but Town dominated the first half.
They still had to come from behind after former Town transfer target Cannon clinically put the Potters in front on six minutes with virtually City’s first attack, as a scything through-ball from Million Manhoef evaded Daiki Hashioka and gift-wrapped the goal.
That stunned the home supporters, because the hosts had started strongly. But some fortitude had been saved since Saturday and the setback did not deter the players. Instead, they showed the character that had seemed to be a distant memory and the hope now is that it’s a feeling that will only be emboldened by the finale.
“I think it was deserved,” said Luton manager Rob Edwards, adding: “It’s nice feeling, obviously. It’s horrible for them, it’s nice feeling for us. You take those moments and you try and enjoy them.
“But I thought, overall the performance was was good. It’s better than the weekend. Proud about how everyone reacted after going 1-0 down quite early on as well, and showed some real character to get back on the front foot and find a way to win the game. So, yeah, it was it was a good night for us in quite difficult circumstances.”
Quite how they rescued the narrative will be the lightning they wish they could bottle, but their quality on the ball in that first five minutes alone set the tone and was magnitudes better than their care of it for the entirety of the weekend, though, admittedly, the bar was low.
Tom Krauß and Jordan Clark were at the centre of everything progressive, while Morris, Adebayo and Jacob Brown stretched the defence for Victor Moses, in particular, to offer up his best performance in a Hatters shirt.
They got their rewards in the 24th minute when Morris showed the ultimate desire to get his head on Clark’s corner, glancing in to level, after Adebayo had already been denied by the superb stopper Viktor Johansson.
But they couldn’t find the goal that their first period pressure deserved and Stoke rallied after the break. Luton’s rhythm deserted them somewhat, but they did not crumble and while Thomas Kaminski made one fine stop to deny Lewis Koumas, Town still chiselled out the best chances.
Morris should have handed the Hatters the lead but conspired to turn Krauß’s cutback wide from close range, while Adebayo had Cannon clear his effort off the line.
But with a share of the spoils on the cards, a free-kick was won by Tahith Chong, who was one of two changes along with Brown, having been dropped after his error at Norwich.
Clark swung it into the box, Stoke cleared but only to Krauß whose fluffed shot bobbled into the path of Adebayo to sweep into the top corner, the Kenilworth Road end a rare sea of tumultuous limbs. Home comforts restored.
Edwards said: “I think we’re about 18 points from the last nine games here at home. So we’ve been doing that here. It’s obviously away that we need to try and find that now.
“So, the form here is all right, and I’m not concerned about that. We’ve come out on the right end of a number of games, not necessarily with a late winner like that, but in tighter games.
“Now we’ve got try and find consistency, which I’ve been saying for quite a long time. That’s our challenge at the moment. But let’s try and enjoy this one for at least a night.”
The relief was certainly palpable around Kenilworth Road, and it also settled one of football enduring debates – no being the answer to the question of whether Stoke can do it on a cold Tuesday night in Luton.
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