Hatters boss labels Luton fans 'magnificent' as proud home record under the lights continues

Town boss Graeme Jones labelled the Kenilworth Road crowd as ‘magnificent’ after they roared Town to a 2-1 win over Brentford on Tuesday evening.

Prior to the match, the Luton manager had called on the home support to play their part on the night and the majority of the 10,008 in attendance were in wonderful voice from the moment Bees defender Shandon Baptiste put through his own net.

They were out of their seats again when Martin Cranie cracked in a volley on the stroke of half time, while in the second period, every single header, every single block and every single clearance was met with a huge outpouring of noise.

Back to back interventions by Ryan Tunnicliffe and then Dan Potts midway through almost brought the house down, as the Town supporters began to fully believe their side could defeat their promotion-chasing opponents, who had put seven past them back in November.

Even though Ollie Watkins pulled one back late on, the Hatters dug in for a massive three points, leaving the pitch to cacophony of cheers, with Jones even having his name chanted, a massive turnaround from just over a month ago, when the manager had been booed off following the 2-1 defeat to Birmingham.

Speaking afterwards, he said: “They were magnificent, you can hear ‘come on Luton’ when we’re just dipping a little bit and all the little things help and they have to.

“We’ve got 11 games left and we can do it, so we need everybody.

“We can win games in the Championship now, we’re missing three key players and can still win a game of football.

“We couldn’t do that before. After Brentford (7-0 defeat), we beat Wigan the next game, purely on a human reaction and after that we were flat.

“We went to Stoke, went to Preston, struggled, so we’re finding a way of winning no matter what team we put out, because the lads are believing that they’re Championship level and we’re proving that with results.”

Town’s win continued their proud record under the Kenilworth Road lights, as they have now gone over two years without an evening midweek defeat.

Since losing 3-2 to Wycombe on January 30, 2018, Tuesday's triumph made it nine victories from 11 outings, as defender Matty Pearson was also quick to praise the support for their efforts on another terrific night.

He continued: “The atmosphere towards the end, everyone had that nerves, it’s football, we all get little nervous, even before the game, but towards the end, to get the win and the atmosphere after the game, we're going to need that throughout the remaining games that we've got.

"We’ve just got to keep believing, keep going and keep that atmosphere, positive thinking and hopefully we can get there (safety).”

It wasn't just the fans that Jones wanted to praise though, as he had this to say on his players, who had looked down and out after losing at Nottingham Forest at the end of January.

He added: "Our boys were magnificent.

"The intelligence of the press, from Harry (Cornick), from James Collins and from Luke Berry in particular.

"He was doing two jobs, zonally he was fantastic, but he was aggressive in the press and then really well supported by Ryan (Tunnicliffe), Pelly-Ruddock (Mpanzu) and Glen Rea, to a man I haven’t got a complaint.

"We managed the game well, we spoke a lot about territory.

"The boys have had a lot of information and it’s lovely to see them execute that.

"That was a high level football match, Brentford played a back three, back four, 4-2-3-1, changed their shape, we were ready and that gives me a lot of satisfaction.”