Edwards sums up Luton's efforts as Town reach the Premier League midway point

Luton boss Rob Edwards believes his side have shown real signs of growth during the first half of their maiden Premier League season.

The Hatters made it to the midway point of the campaign when beaten 3-2 by Chelsea at the weekend, a result that sees them still sitting in the relegation zone, trailing Everton by a single point. Having started with four straight defeats and also finding goals incredibly hard to come by, picking up just one victory from their opening 12 matches, Luton have now won three out of seven, finding the net in all of their last six outings as well.

Asked to sum up Town’s efforts in the highest tier of English football since winning the play-off final back in May, Edwards said: “It’s hard, I think we’re building, we’re growing. We’ve learned a lot, we learnt quite quickly. We got stung in a couple of games early on, we weren’t doing one or two things right, we worked hard on that to adjust it. I know Kenilworth Road is different, but we’ve had more of the ball than Chelsea and the wealth of talent they’ve got.

"We created loads of chances, showed loads of character, fight, heart, so I love the way that we’re progressing. That gives me confidence and belief going into the second half of the season. First half, bottom line, good, in terms of performances, but we need more points. Ruthlessness in both boxes too, that’s going to be really, really important, that’s the big thing at this level.”

Luton were given another lesson in exactly that by Mauricio Pochettino’s side at the weekend as the Blues made the most of their forays into Town’s penalty area, Cole Palmer taking advantage of a terrible pass from issa Kabore to rifle the visitors into an early lead. Noni Madueke was then afforded far too much time as he hammered past Thomas Kaminski, while after the break, Palmer was released by a ball straight through middle of Luton’s defence, as he waltzed past Kaminski and the covering Gabe Osho to add a third.

Town did their best to hit back, scoring twice through Ross Barkley and Elijah Adebayo, while Adebayo had a goal ruled out for offside and also hit the bar, as did Carlton Morris, with Edwards adding: “Clearly both boxes are really important and to concede those goals, I thought the first and the third were disappointing from our point of view and could have been avoided. I know it’s three goals, its a lot, but apart from those three, Chelsea weren’t able to create. They huffed and puffed, they had one that flashed across in the first half, there was a good block from Sambi (Lokonga) in the second half, but there wasn’t loads of saves for Thomas to make, and we did have big chances.

"We hit the woodwork a couple of times, the offside goal, there was some really good play to create those chances, so on the performance, we need to keep creating, keep brushing up on the mistakes that we've made, keep learning and improving in those moments. But I’m seeing a lot of stuff that I like as well. The Premier League is really hard to keep clean sheets, we nearly found a way to get something from the game, even when we conceded three.”