Confident Morris happy to be put on the spot for Luton despite having taken just two penalties before

Town striker Carlton Morris showed little signs of nerves when tucking away his match-winning penalty against Middlesbrough on Monday night, despite having only scored one other spotkick in his career.

The 27-year-old had the chance from 12 yards after being sent through on goal by Jordan Clark and going over a challenge from keeper Zack Steffen inside the area, as despite Boro boss Michael Carrick’s protests, TV replays show there was in fact contact on the Town forward by the on-loan Manchester City stopper.

Tasked with beating the USA international, since coming through the ranks at Norwich City, Morris had taken just two penalties as a senior pro, netting his last attempt in a league game, that coming for Barnsley in a 1-1 draw with Fulham back in March 2022.

His only other effort had come as an MK Dons player, when during a Carabao Cup tie with Coventry City during September 2020, which was saved by Marko Marosi, the rebound also blasted over.

Aside from two in the Premier League Two with the Canaries that he successfully converted in 2014 and 2016, Morris was stepping up for just his third go, but confidently found the bottom corner, sending Steffen the wrong way.

On being confident with his new role, he said; “Absolutely, from a young age you’ve always seen penalties as not free goals, but it’s a great opportunity to get a goal when one on one with the keeper.

"Previously in my career I’ve just never been in a situation when I’ve been on penalties and when I have I’ve missed them at bad times.

"I would always be 100 percent confident to step up and take a penalty.”

Morris, who was netting Luton’s first league penalty in just over a year, since Kal Naismith scored in the 1-0 win over Nottingham Forest on April 15, 2022, following misses by Adebayo and Cauley Woodrow this term, always knew what he was going to do, as he continued: “I think you’ve got to have a practiced penalty that you’re comfortable with and it’s like the Harry Kane thing, you’ve got to know what you're doing beforehand.

"You can’t be changing your mind last minute, it's a recipe for disaster isn’t it?”

Although Adebayo was the man expected to take the penalty and looked like he would, getting the ball and lining things up, Morris then took over when the action had died down.

On how that materialised, he said: “Eli said to me, ‘go get your 20th goal, you deserve it.'

"I said ‘thank you man,’ and he held the ball for me until it was time to take the pen.

“It goes back to what I said earlier about the camaraderie.

“That’s the type of people that I’m playing with at the moment, it’s a special thing really.”

Boss Rob Edwards had no issues with Morris taking over from Adebayo either, adding: “It’s on the day, you need to be able to feel it and clearly Carlton has.

"I’ve got no problem with that as we’ve missed a couple recently.

"We’ve not had loads, but we’ve missed a couple, so I thought it was a really good penalty.”