Edwards does feel the pressure of trying to mastermind Luton's Premier League safety

Luton boss Rob Edwards admitted he does feel the pressure of trying to mastermind Premier League survival for the Hatters this season, after returning just one win from the club’s 10 top flight matches so far.

The 40-year-old was appointed in charge at Kenilworth Road almost a year ago, as he masterminded Town’s successful run to the play-offs, beating Coventry City on penalties in the final at Wembley.

He won 15 out of 28 league and play-off games to do that, but has understandably found victories far harder to come by this term, with Luton going up against the cream of English, and indeed world football, highlighted by Liverpool heading to Bedfordshire this afternoon.

It has seen them take just five points to date, beating Everton at Goodison Park and drawing with Nottingham Forest and Wolves, as they sit third bottom, but only a point behind AFC Bournemouth, who were thrashed 6-1 by Manchester City yesterday, and five adrift of Forest.

Despite that, Edwards said: “I understand the challenge and I don’t think any of you guys (media) think, if we lose a game, that means you’re doing a bad job.

"But you feel the pressure as you want to compete and we want to win still.

"Sometimes that’s hard to accept with what we’re going up against and trying to find a way, as it’s difficult to find any kind of weakness in some of these teams as well.

"We want to be here, we want to be competing against the best but then you realise how difficult it is.

"There is a nightmarish feel about it at times when you’re losing sleep over trying to find a way to stop him, or exploit that area there, it’s difficult.

"But overall, we’re enjoying it, you can still hear the lads enjoying themselves now.

"There’s a good feel about the place and there’s nothing like a result as well to lift that, but there’s a belief that we can cause one or two upsets along the way.”

This kind of sequence is new territory for Edwards as well, as starting out at Forest Green, he had nothing but success in his first season, leading the club to the League Two title.

He did go through a run of seven games without a win though, four of them draws, while even at Watford, sacked after 11 mathces, he was only beaten three times.

There was a time before that, when cutting his teeth at management with Conference North side AFC Telford United in 2017, when he suffered four successive reverses, as that is something he is using to get through this difficult sequence.

He continued: “The Telford bit is an area to lean on.

"We had four losses in a row there, around the winter period.

"The pitch was unplayable at times, games were called off and we found ourselves in this sort of position.

"So I can lean on that time now and think, we got through that, found a way, and then the last third of the season we averaged two points a game.

"Other than that, not so much and certainly on at this level either, so it’s new experiences.

“The biggest thing I try and do is speak to certain people, speak to the staff and lean on them, speak to the players a lot.

“We believe in what we’re doing and how we’re going about things.

"We understand that and we always knew this was going to be a difficult season for us, so success is going to be judged over a longer period of time.

"We want to be in that fight and in the mix, that’s where we’re at at the moment.

"We want to have more points, I believe we could have one or two more, but we haven’t, we’ve got to deal with it and got to find a way to pick up more.

"I know in the end, it’s all well and good saying we’re competing and doing this well, we’ve got to do things better to get more points.

"That’s the bottom line and that’s what we’re working really, really hard to try and do.”

Although victory in today’s game against the title-chasing Reds would see Luton climb out of the bottom three, Edwards wasn’t completely satisfied with the manner in which his side have begun their first top flight season in over 30 years.

He added: “No, I think we could be doing better.

"I know there’ll be a few teams who could see they could have more points, but I think we’ve left some points out there, I really do.

"There’s been some good things as well, some good performances and there can be a lot of hope there as well, a lot to look forward to.

"We can see a team that’s really committed and giving it absolutely everything all the time, but I think we’ve left some points out there.

"In the end it doesn’t matter how well you’re competing, it’s the points that matter and that’s what we’ve got to try and find now.

"We haven’t got enough after 10 games, so a big focus on that.

"It’s a difficult set of games to go and get that, but we’ve got to believe we can."