Hylton was always going to be put on the spot

Despite missing from the spot at Wycombe recently, there was no way Town striker Danny Hylton wasn't stepping up again when Luton had been awarded a penalty against Newport on Saturday.
Danny Hylton chips his penalty down the middle against NewportDanny Hylton chips his penalty down the middle against Newport
Danny Hylton chips his penalty down the middle against Newport

Once Glen Rea had been hauled down in the area in in the 35th minute, it was Hylton who grabbed the ball and went on to beat Exiles keeper Joe Day to put the hosts 3-0 in front.

When asked if his failure at Adams Park had meant he had thought about moving aside for James Collins, Hylton said: “No, no, no, no, Collo’s a goalscorer, he wants to take penalties, I’m sure there’s many other people that want to take penalties as well.

“I’ve got them at the minute, I missed my last one, but players miss penalties sometimes.

“I back myself, as long as the manager wants me to take them, I back myself to go up there and score.”

Hylton showed the confident he has from 12 yards, by netting one of his Panenka efforts, dinking down the middle as Day moved out of the way.

It saw an enraged County assistant manager Wayne Hatswell sent to the stands, after he had apparently told his keeper to remain upright, as on his effort, Hylton continued: “I’ve got to be careful about what I say but I missed my last one against Wycombe.

“I was going to go down the middle and their keeper and left back came up to me and said ‘we know you’re going to go down the middle’, so I changed my mind at the last minute and missed.

“I should have just stuck to what I was going to do and gone down the middle, so I did that today, but their keeper’s dived out the way.

“I’ve just been told that their goalkeeping coach was going mad as he’s told their goalkeeper to stand still and don’t move and he did.

“So I could have looked a bit silly, but thankfully he did move and I think that’s the only way a keeper can lose. As if you stand there and someone rolls it in either side you look a bit silly, so thankfully he didn’t have the cahoonas to stand there.”

Boss Nathan Jones famously doesn’t watch penalties, but on Hylton’s technique from the spot, he added: “I know now how he’s done it, I’ll have to watch it back, I’m just glad he didn’t miss it.

“As long as he puts it in the back of the net, I don’t care how they take them, but they’ve got to score, as we’ve got probably four or five penalty takers in the squad.

“Collo was a penalty taker last year (for Crawley) and he’s an outstanding penalty taker.

“(Alan) Sheehan is exactly the same, (Luke) Gambin, (Jordan) Cook, are all top end penalty takers, technicians, so as long as he scores, I don’t really care.”