Manager Rob Edwards says there’s no “magic formula” to resurrect Luton’s fragile confidence but has outlined some of the measures needed to address it.
Town were 2-0 up at home to Oxford United last night, but were pegged back and had to hold on for a point with ten men after 77 minutes when Liam Walsh was introduced off the bench and saw red seconds later when he scythed down Sikiri Dembele.
Having been comprehensively beaten 3-1 at Plymouth last week, the Hatters took an early lead through Jordan Clark and doubled up close to the break through Tom Krauß’s first goal for the club.
Oxford, however, had more than enough good chances to score as Thomas Kaminski and twice Teden Mengi rescued the hosts until Tyler Goodrham halved the deficit on the stroke of half time with a sublime curler. But then United bossed the second half.
Ruben Rodrigues drew Oxford level and then it was backs to the wall for a Luton side that have struggled defensively for the entire calendar year, both in the Premier League and now the Championship.
They needed Kaminski to pull off a stunning triple save to prevent defeat but, somehow finished the stronger side once Walsh was sent off.
Afterwards, Edwards his men are lacking “confidence and belief” but asked if the only thing that will change that is results, he said: “I think so, yeah. It will be won’t it? It’ll build hopefully with with some results.
“No-one’s got a magic formula with that sort of stuff, but I think it was evident tonight, at 2-0 up there was there was some good stuff, but one or two mistakes.
“But, you know, that’s fairly normal. It’s a difficult night as well with the pitch and some decisions to be made and people a little bit edgy.
“But certainly once they (Oxford) got that second goal, you know, the lads are human beings and it’s difficult to cope and they’re (Luton players) probably thinking, ‘wow, here we go again!’
“But they didn’t. They stood up. So, hopefully we take a bit from that, the way we finished.”
With one of the toughest fixtures of the season up next at Sheffield United – who were relegated from the top flight with Luton but have begun this season in better form – Edwards will now have to find a way to plug the gaps that Oxford, and indeed Plymouth prior to that, exploited with alarming regularity.
He said: “We’ll try and show them the positives, how we got in the lead in the first place, and we’ve got to address the issues that we had that mid section of the game, mid third of the game, where they were the better team.
“But confidence is not something you can just sort of click your fingers and then magic up either. That’s going to come with us continuing to build, hard work on the grass, on the training ground.
“It’s going to be being organised, it’s going to be a little bit more stability, and performances, but ultimately it will come from results.”
Kenilworth Road was a tense place against Oxford and, even with the team 2-0 up, there was a muted atmosphere in the terraces which, by the end of the match, turned into smattering of boos.
Edwards said: “I accept whatever anyone will throw at us at the moment, in terms of we’re 2-0 up and we’ve let that slip against a team that everyone will be saying that should just be you should win the game from there, and at home.
“It doesn’t matter who were playing against, at 2-0 up we want to try and win the game and expect to.
“But give them credit. They (Oxford) played well. And, especially for that 20, 25 minutes or so, they were the better team and deserved to get back in it.
“But the way we finished. That hard work organisation, togetherness that they showed, and then some quality to actually remain a threat and retain a threat in the game. We’ll have to take some of that.
“So, yeah, it was a difficult night. Not not enjoyable at all. But we took something from the game and the position we were in at 2-2 and the feeling of the place, you we would have felt the same thing as well, it almost looked then that we were going to lose the game.
“So, yeah, we’ll take we’ll take heart from that last period there.”
