Luton survived a nervy finish to edge past League Two Gillingham and into the third round of the Carabao Cup with Cauley Woodrow’s second-half strike proving decisive.
It was one of three wonderful strikes from the hosts, with Jacob Brown and Alfie Doughty blasting home in a comfortable first period that lacked fluency with seven changes from Friday’s 3-0 Premier League defeat at Chelsea.
The second was much of a blood-and-thunder cup tie as Gillingham gave it a good go, sparked by Jayden Clarke halving the deficit and Tom Nichols’ late header raising the nervousness among Town’s ranks that they managed to quell.
Hatters boss Rob Edwards said: “I’m pleased with the end result, it was important tonight.
“We could only win by winning the game, the expectancy was obviously on us, it’s a little bit different to the last couple of games we’ve had, so I feel very pleased.
“We had quite a lot of changes, tweaked the shape a little bit, and I liked a lot of what I saw. It was a good start and I thought we built on it as well.
“We controlled pretty much all of the first half, going 2-0 up was great, brilliant goal from Alfie, he’s got that in him, and we spoke at half time about the next goal.
“The next goal was really important and the game could really hinge on that. They got it, they probably had five or 10 minutes then when we had to deal with it, they played forward, ran forward, had set-pieces, but we still looked OK.
“Cauley’s goal settled us down but then we controlled it again until the very last couple of minutes, but there’s probably a reason if we lacked a bit of fluency tonight, but I was thinking we might, but there was a lot of good things I saw.”
It had been an unspectacular but relatively comfortable first half from Luton, back on home soil for the first time in three and half months and in front of the revamped Bobber’s Stand.
And the home fans didn’t have to wait long as Brown’s rifled blast to break what could scarcely be called deadlock, inside two minutes.
The strike on his full debut did relax a Hatters side that had suffered back-to-back defeats to open their debut Premier League campaign.
The outlook improved again when Doughty rocketed in a goal-of-the-season contender already with an unstoppable free-kick from 28 yards, just before the half-hour mark.
But Town’s comfortable position slipped into mode that was far too laid back after the restart and Gillingham pulled a deserved goal back. Clarke bullied his way in front of goal and didn’t miss.
And for a Hatters side that would’ve been hoping for a confidence-boosting clean sheet, there were a few nervous minutes when the Gills threatened to level.
Only debutant keeper Tim Krul’s leg prevented an equaliser, and even that was a heart-in-mouth moment when Ashley Nadesan outmuscled an out-of-sorts Amari’i Bell, on his 100th appearance, and must’ve thought he’d blasted between the Dutch stopper’s legs.
But a two-goal cushion was soon restored when the Gills didn’t clear their lines and the ball dropped invitingly for Woodrow, who wrapped a composed volley into the net.
That should’ve killed the visitors’ momentum but a sublime late Nichols header beat Krul and squeezed inside the post to set up a grandstand finish, with the keeper’s fingertips preventing Jonny Williams from claiming a stunning equaliser, as Luton squeezed into the third round.
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