Edwards believes hat-trick hero Adebayo can be 'really difficult' for Premier League teams to play against

Luton boss Rob Edwards believes striker Elijah Adebayo has the potential to become a real thorn in the side for top flight defences following his first ever Premier League hat-trick during last night’s utterly magnificent 4-0 hammering of Brighton & Hove Albion.

The forward got things up and running after just 18 seconds when he bravely reached Carlton Morris’s knockdown from Chiedozie Ogbene’s right wing cross in front of Albion keeper Jason Steele to cleverly glance a header into the net. Having seen Ogbene double Luton's lead just a few moments afterwards, Town becoming the first team since Leicester City in April 1998 to score twice in the opening two minutes, Adebayo added his second in the latter stages of the first half, as released by Ross Barkley, he raced away to confidently beat Steele at his near post.

After the break, Adebayo was soon the first Luton player to score a treble at this level since Lars Elstrup in 1990 when heading home Alfie Doughty’s corner from a few yards out to make it eight goals for the season and six in his last even Premier League outings following strikes against Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City. After finding the net just twice in his opening 14 appearances, where he also had to bide his time on the bench for a period of time, asked about his swift development, Edwards said: “I think he’s becoming more reliable with the ball.

"I think his work-rate has always been great, but he’s seeing how important it is to press and press hard, do the double runs, go and press the goalkeeper and go and press your man. He does that tirelessly, but he’s going to be someone who is going to be really difficult to play against. He can come back and defend set-pieces, he’s a threat in the opposition box aerially as well as the little one one-yarders, but his all round performances now, because of his pressing, because of his build up play now, he’s scoring some goals, he’s progressing really, really well. There’s still a long way to go for him. I think he’s got a really high ceiling Eli. If he stays focused and keeps working hard, he can go a long way and have a really, really good career, I think he’s showing that now.”

The striker is not the only one who is showing signs of real improvement, as Luton’s victory took them out of the relegation zone and made it just one defeat from eight in all competitions, picking up 10 points out of a possible 15 from their league encounters. Edwards continued: “I think we all are. A lot of us are fairly new to the league and a lot of the lads are as well, but they understand the demands of it now, they know how hard it is and a lot of them are showing huge improvement. We played Brighton the first game of the season to now, I think the lads deserve a lot of credit, but I know nothing’s done yet and I reminded them that as well. We’ve got to keep our foot down and keep trying to get better, because we’re going to need to be, but Eli’s a really good example of that, from day one to now, huge improvement.”

Now that Adebayo is in such a fine run of goalscoring form, with Luton having four of their next six matches on home soil, against Sheffield United, Manchester United, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest, it could be a crucial period of their season in terms of the battle to stay up. Having a fit and firing forward will only help, as what cementing his place as the club’s leading marksman with a first hat-trick in the top four divisions of English football will do for the striker personally, Edwards said: “It’ll be great for him, won’t it?

"It will give him loads more confidence and belief. His performances have been excellent for a long time now. He presses so hard, his hold-up play is really, really improving. He’s focusing on that and working hard on that in training. He’s bringing other people into play and I think he was really tidy tonight and looked confident. But, he got the rewards with his goals as well. He was excellent tonight, as they all were.”

Discussing his finishes against the Seagulls, Edwards added: “I know he got whacked there (for the first) and there’s different types of bravery. I was pleased with the regain though (for the second), we won it back high, that goal came from a high regain, and we had so many of them tonight. We didn’t allow them to get into a rhythm, won it back really quickly, really good forward run by Eli, great forward pass, really good finish.”