Edwards proud to hear Luton receive some high praise from 'elite' Arsenal boss Arteta

​Luton boss Rob Edwards was pleased to hear the Hatters receive some high praise from another of the top managers in the Premier League yesterday.

Ahead of the Town’s trip to Arsenal, Gunners boss Mikel Arteta stated that the visitors should be given more credit than any other side in the top flight for the way they have gone about their attempts in trying to stay in the division against all the odds this term. The Spaniard, who led his team to a 4-3 victory at Kenilworth Road back in December, £100m signing Declan Rice scoring for the visitors in the last seconds of injury time, said: “Especially how tough it was to win and how difficult they have made it for every team, big compliments to Rob, the coaching staff and what they have done as a club is an amazing journey.

"I think they deserve more credit than any other team in this league, how they've done it, what they transmit as a team and I’m expecting a really tough game. The way we celebrated shows you the difficulty of the match and how much we had to fight for the points.”

Responding to those words of praise, Edwards, who has already seen Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp say similar nice things about his work improving the Hatters this term, said: “It is nice to hear people like Mikel, Pep (Guardiola) and Jurgen (Klopp) in particular, these guys are the best in the business saying such nice things about our football club. I think that’s nice because they’re people I have huge respect for. They’re elite and for them to recognise some of the good work that people are doing, because they understand the challenges, it’s nice to hear.”

Arteta himself is having a superb fourth full season in charge in north London, leading the club to a realistic chance of a Premier League and European double, the Gunners with a Champions League quarter-final clash against Bayern Munich on the horizone. It was of no surprise to Edwards, as the pair did their coaching qualifications together a few years ago, along with another Arsenal legend too.

He added: “We did our pro licence together and he was always going to go on to do top things. He’s doing it now, he’s going to be one of the best it looks like for a long, long time. We all still have a bit of a group chat from that pro license which is nice, so when people achieve something or go into a new role, it’s nice to see best wishes from all the people that are on there.

“We’re not all managers that are on there, Pepijn Lijnders (Liverpool assistant), there were some Welsh managers, Thierry Henry was on it, we were really lucky, it was a long time ago, so I’m not going on like we’re best mates. It's nice to keep in touch a little bit from afar, but after his (Arteta’s) incredible playing career, he’s gone on and looks like he’s going to go on and have an even more successful managerial career.”