Arsenal and City displays give Nakamba encouragement that Luton can stay in the Premier League

​The manner in which Town competed against both Arsenal and Manchester City in the last week has given midfielder Marvelous Nakamba further encouragement that Luton can win their battle to stay in the Premier League this term.

Despite the vast differences between the sides that lined up in terms of finances, Luton led during both contests, as they were 3-2 up against the Gunners with an hour gone, also leading City 1-0 at half time.

However, Town suffered the cruellest of 4-3 defeats to Arsenal, £105m signing Declan Rice scoring with the very last kick of the contest, before Bernardo Silva and Jack Grealish, who cost £100m as well, netted a quickfire double on Sunday to register a 2-1 victory.

A positive Nakamba said: “It’s (City loss) difficult to take, unfortunately it was similar against Arsenal, but the positive thing I think, to go toe-to-toe with one of the best teams in the world, it has to give us huge encouragement and positive thinking to take into our next game.

“As a club, as players, we just have to believe more and keep on encouraging each other especially here at home, with our fans behind us, we just have to believe more. I think the confidence is still there. When you perform like this at home, the confidence has to be there in each and every one inside the club.

"It’s always good to play against the best. I have played against the best before in the Champions League, so I know of the quality, but to go toe-to-toe with them, this is what we wanted for the club, to be in the Premier League.

"We just have to keep going, giving everything, fighting for everything, the fans are 100 percent behind us, so it’s up to us now to push maybe a little bit more extra.

"Personally I still believe, I’m a believer and hopefully soon we can get some results."

Town had looked like they might not just compete, but actually go on and claim a shock three points when they took the lead through Elijah Adebayo’s back post header on the stroke of half time.

However, a few defensive errors from Rob Edwards’ side, plus City’s extra quality coming through, meant Pep Guardiola's team took the victory when scoring twice inside three second half minutes.

Nakamba, a former team-mate of Grealish at Aston Villa, continued: “It was a good goal from Elijah, I was delighted for him and also for the club, for the fans, it was a good time to get the goal. Unfortunately the second half, to concede two goals, quick goals, in the space of five minutes, but we kept on pushing, we have to keep on believing, keep on encouraging each other for more positive things.”

The Zimbawean international was back in the side at the weekend after missing three matches with a knee injury picked up while on international duty for his country recently.

Although he will be missing once more at AFC Bournemouth on Saturday due to his fifth booking of the season in Sunday’s defeat, he is happy to be fully fit again, adding: “Yes, it’s okay. I had to play on a synthetic pitch for two games in four days, but now it’s fine, everything’s fine.”