Edwards urges Town to be ready for Bournemouth's 'devastating' front four including the 'influential' Semenyo

Luton boss Rob Edwards has warned his side to be ready to face a red-hot AFC Bournemouth side and in particular flying attacker Antoine Semenyo, if he recovers from illness, after he led the Cherries to what seemed an impossible 4-3 victory at the Vitality Stadium over the Hatters just under a month ago.

Town had romped into a 3-0 lead on the south coast thanks to first half goals from Tahith Chong, Chiedozie Ogbene and Ross Barkley, which looked like it would be enough to breathe real life into their hopes of staying up this term. However, Semenyo, a £10m signing from Bristol City in January 2023, then came off the bench at the break along with Marcus Tavernier, as Andoni Iraola sent his players out early for the second period, the double change not only working, but working wonders.

Within 20 minutes the hosts were level, Dominic Solanke, Illia Zabarnyi and Semenyo all scoring, before the interval replacement, who gave Daiki Hashioka a real working over, then added his second in the closing stages to seal what had looked like an improbable success. Having seen the Ghana international and his team-mates in full flight, Edwards knows they will need close attention this afternoon at Kenilworth Road, as he said: “He (Semenyo) was really influential, but whoever they pick on that last line, Solanke’s had an amazing season, Tavernier had a real impact in that game when he came on at half time, he’s been ever present since

"Whoever they play up there, (Justin) Kluivert, whoever it might be, they’ve got good options. I know they’ve got one or two misses or bits and bobs going on there as well, but whoever they’ve got, they’re good. Speed, power, technique, that front four can be devastating against any team, which they’ve shown now for a consistent period of time in the league.”

Although the immediate feeling was crushing disappointment on the south coast, asked on reflection whether he could take plenty of optimism from the display in the opening 45 minutes in which his Town side themselves counter-attacked with ruthless efficiency, Edwards continued: "We can, there’s lots of positive there, there’s things that we could have done better, second half they did great, they did, but it was just five moments.

"The one when Semenyo cut over and shot over the bar too, it wasn’t like it was wave after wave after wave after wave, we just didn’t deal with some key moments well enough. Even at 3-3, we missed an open goal to go 4-3 up from a set-piece, it could have been very different, but it wasn’t so there’s things we learned and went through the next day. There’s things from there we’ve been really trying to take in and out in to practise in the games since, and have done pretty well in that. So we look at some of the things we did well, but we’re always trying to learn and get better and there were some things we got wrong.”

Getting a slice of revenge from that game isn’t something that Edwards has placed high up on his agenda though, saying: “No, we can’t think like that. We just want to do it as it’s really important to win the game. It hurts, the manner that it happened, but we can’t think of it like that. We’re still in a position really I feel, even though we’re a few points behind where we can control our own destiny if we get enough points and that’s how we’ve got to do it.”

A tough start to the season for Iraola, who replaced Gary O’Neil in the summer, meant it looked like Bournemouth would be in and around the bottom of the league with Luton after failing to win any of their first nine encounters, while a 6-1 thrashing at Manchester City made it one victory from 11 matches. However, they then went on a stunning run of six wins from seven and have lost just four top flight matches since early November, including only two away games, winning at Manchester United along the way.

A run of five fixtures without victory just after the turn of the year was ended with another four victories from five outings, including that success over the Hatters, although the Cherries' last four have all been on home soil. Discussing the work that the former Mirandés and Rayo Vallecano manager has done, Edwards added: “He’s done an amazing job, along with his staff and his players as well, massive congratulations to them, they’ve been brilliant this year.

"I know they had a bit of a difficult start, that can happen. They’ve been from 20-odd games ago, one of the form teams in the league which is really difficult to do in this league. It's the way that he’s played back in Spain as well, it suits the players they've got. He’s not asked them to do anything they can’t do, it’s intelligent coaching and they’re very talented players as well which we’ve seen. He’s getting the best out of them and they’ve done great.”