Edwards reveals he had 'expected' Luton to get their first Premier League win at Everton

Luton boss Rob Edwards revealed he had ‘expected' the Hatters to record a first ever Premier League victory ahead of their 2-1 success at Everton on Saturday.

Going into the game, Town had picked up a maiden point of the season against Wolves last week, but then suffered a disappointing Carabao Cup exit to League One Exeter City on Tuesday night.

The Toffees meanwhile had won 3-1 at Brentford the previous weekend to kickstart their top flight campaign and followed that up by knocking Aston Villa out of the cup with a 2-1 success in midweek.

It meant that the majority of the 39,289 inside Goodison Park assumed the hosts would earn a first home win of the season, and they started well enough, creating a number of presentable chances, Idrissa Gueye side-footing the best of them horribly wide.

Luton then stung their hosts with two goals in seven minutes, Tom Lockyer and Carlton Morris both on target after terrific Alfie Doughty set-pieces, although England international Dominic Calvert-Lewin did manage to halve the deficit just before half time.

The second 45 minutes saw Town keep their opponents out admirably, as despite Sean Dyche’s side having the majority of the ball, they were once more off target when the opportunity to equalise arose, Thomas Kaminski barely called into action as the Hatters emerged triumphant.

Speaking afterwards, Edwards said: “It's off our backs now, it's been a little while coming, but we've been due it.

"We've been improving in every single game, last week we get our first point, today we get our first win.

“I’m very, very proud of the players, I know it’s a big moment, I get that, and I don’t want this to come across in any kind of arrogant way, but I expected us to today, I really did.

“I fancied us, I told the lads before the game, I know this is going to be a good day, I really believed and that’s total respect, but I’ve believed that in all the games so far.

"We really believed we could come here and win the game.

"We had a really good plan and Everton, they've got some good players and they were very fluid as well, especially in that first half.

"We had to adjust at half time which we did and then looked very solid again and I thought we deserved it.

"It felt great, I’m more pleased for the supporters, I’ve just been desperate to give them something to shout about, I’m really pleased the lads have done that."

When asked just why he had been so confident going to a ground that Luton hadn’t won at since 1988, Edwards continued: “I think the fact that we have been improving, we’ve been in the games.

"Last week a dominant performance against Wolves who have got really good players, so I just felt today the styles would fit.

"I felt we could find some spaces, we would be able to cause them some problems, which we did in the first half particularly.

"Again that’s all due respect, they can attack quickly, they can put balls in the box with some real physicality as well, but I feel that we’re normally quite good at dealing with that stuff.

“If I’m seeing improvement in performance then we’ve got a chance, and I’m seeing that at the moment, I think everyone will agree.

“Everyone who has seen our games and cared to watch and look at us rather than just looking at our results and going ‘well Luton didn’t get anything, they’re rubbish,’ it’s not the case.

"You’ll see the improvements that have been made from Brighton all the way through to now, but it’s results that people listen and take notice of.

"My job is to keep players focused, keep the belief there, make sure we’ve got an organisation, make sure we’ve got a plan, the players are working extremely hard and do the basics well.

"If we do all those things we’ll have a chance.”

Town didn’t have things all their own way by any means either, having to make two enforced changes to their defence during the contest.

Reece Burke went off at half time for Mads Andersen and then skipper Lockyer was withdrawn 10 minutes into the second period after taking a blow to the face, with recent addition Teden Mengi on for his Premier League debut.

It meant Luton had to survive for well over half an hour with a back three who had never played together, but they did just that, with a Toffees strike force that was boosted by £26m signing Beto unable to break through.

Edwards said: “We believe in the group, Mads had to come on at half time, I thought he was absolutely brilliant.

"We chose to put him into the middle as there were a lot more balls coming into the box and we felt his presence in the middle with that height, he defended the box really, really well.

"Locks, his eye was closing a little bit, Teden coming on for his league debut for us, I thought he was excellent as well.

"There were a lot of diagonal balls coming, crosses coming in, and we defended the box very well, as I don’t think Thomas had that many saves to make.

"We had a lot of success last year from doing those basics really well, I’ve banged on about that a lot, but that has to be a prerequisite for us, which we have been doing a lot better in recent games.”

With the Hatters having won a number of games on the road in the Championship last term by the odd goal, asked whether his side used those experiences to help them see out the closing stages, Edwards added: “I think we could, but I would say there is a lot of different players in the second half to what we would have had last year.

"We could draw on that, it probably suited us a little bit that game and I think that’s why we were confident coming into it.

"We feel we can have that fight and that battle and come out on top, we had to show a lot of steel and run hard, people worked extremely hard.

"Jacob Brown, the ground he covers, Pelly (Mpanzu) and Marv (Nakamba), they’ll be some unsung heroes there as they didn’t get the assist or the goal.

"But some really good individual performances there, people just fighting and grafting for the team.”