Edwards believes 'common sense' move to sign Blackburn's expert shot-stopper Kaminski is paying off

Luton boss Rob Edwards believes the ‘common sense’ decision to bring in a top class shot-stopper in Belgian goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski this summer is paying off after his starring role during yesterday’s 1-1 draw against Liverpool at Kenilworth Road.

The 31-year-old was starting his 11th straight game for the Hatters since a move from Blackburn Rovers, where he had carved out a reputation for making some terrific saves, Town paying an undisclosed fee to bring him in as their number one, replacing Ethan Horvath after his loan from Nottingham Forest wasn’t turned into a permanent deal.

With the Reds enjoying a fast start as expected on Sunday evening, Kaminski began his night by touching behind Darwin Nunez’s curling attempt from range, a battle that was to continue throughout the contest.

Town’s stopper was thankful his woodwork came to the rescue when denying the Uruguayan international who had escaped the attention of the hosts’ defence, before springing to parry another curler from the forward, who had one thing in his mind when in sight of the goalposts.

Kaminski reserved his best save for the latter stages of the first period, getting down to his right brilliantly to parry Diogo Jota’s snapshot away after a surging Ryan Gravenberch run.

After the break, the former Anderlecht and Gent custodian should have been picking the ball out of his net on 70 minutes when Nunez somehow skied over the bar from just a few yards out after latching on to Mohamad Salah’s misdirected header.

He was then called on again moments later, with an athletic tip over from Nunez’s next attempt which was most definitely on target, while also flying to his left to claw away Gravenberch’s 18-yarder, conceding a corner that saw Luton storm up the other end to take the lead through Tahith Chong.

Just when it looked like he would be celebrating a first clean sheet in the Premier League, with just three of the eight stoppage time minutes to go, Kamsinki was finally beaten, Luis Diaz getting above Issa Kabore to meet Harvey Elliott’s cross with his shoulder, the ball cruelly dropping into the net.

Despite that, he was still named as the sponsor’s man of the match afterwards, as Edwards said: “Thomas was excellent and he has been in really good form.

"To get any kind of result against Liverpool, you know our goalkeeper is going to have to do his job and do it well, which he did do, so I’m really pleased.

"That’s why we brought him here, we knew this year we’re going to be facing more shots than we were in the Championship, that’s just common sense, so we bring in someone who’s good at shot-stopping.

"He’s doing his job very, very well.”

Those thoughts were echoed by team-mate Andros Townsend, who was making his first start for the Hatters saying: “I’ve only been here a few weeks, a month or so, but he’s been fantastic all season and we’re going to need him if we are going to survive.

"We played well, we did the defensive side perfectly, but the best teams in Europe, they’re always going to find a way to break down your stubborn block.

"They did that on a few occasions, but thankfully Tom was equal to everything they had up until the last few moments of the game."

Discussing his efforts on Match of the Day 2, ex-Brighton and Crystal Palace forward Glenn Murray added: “Kaminski comes up with really big saves.

"Against Jota, I don’t think he does the wrong thing, it’s just a really good save.

"On afternoons like this you need your goalkeeper to have a really big afternoon and he certainly did that.

"Any time any questions were asked, Kaminski was there."

Luton fans were also clearly impressed too, as writing on Twitter about their keeper, who is now seventh in the top flight for saves made, with 40 to his name, @LutonEye said: “Come on @BelRedDevils - get him in goal for the national team.”

“Some fabulous saves in there last night.”

@SSE_LTFC: “Hands down our best goalkeeper in a VERY long time.”

@DottieJanes: “He was outstanding yesterday.”

@TimPatriot: “Gets better every game, yet again incredible recruitment from us.”

@KeitanHargreavs: “Easily the most underrated keeper in the League.”