Hatters boss was glad resurgent Luton were heavily criticised following opening day defeat at Brighton

Luton boss Rob Edwards insisted he was glad that the Hatters were shown just how tough life in the Premier League would be following an opening day 4-1 defeat at Brighton & Hove Albion back in August, turning in a performance that saw them heavily criticised by a number of pundits afterwards.

After beating Coventry City in the play-off final at Wembley just a few months earlier, it meant Town were embarking on their first ever season in the highest tier of English football since the division was rebranded, also coming up against side that were on a high having finished sixth the previous campaign, qualifying for the Europa League in the process. It meant that although Carlton Morris got Luton’s account up and running from the penalty spot in the second half, the visitors were given a sound beating at the Amex, leading to former Newcastle and England striker Alan Shearer being particularly critical when analysing the display on Match of the Day.

He had said: “They were so naive. They've got to learn very quickly, they've got to improve very quickly otherwise they're going to go back down. Some of the errors you wouldn't accept at any level of football, let alone the best league in the world, so that has to stop and stop pretty quickly.”

Edwards took such comments in his stride though, as the Hatters, now with Ross Barkley, Sambi Lokonga, Gabe Osho, Teden Mengi, Alfie Doughty and Chiedozie Ogbene in their starting XI, showed just how far they had come in the reverse fixture, hammering the Seagulls 4-0 at Kenilworth Road on Tuesday night, Elijah Adebayo scoring a wonderful hat-trick. Asked if he had felt the thoughts from Shearer and co were over the top at the time, the Town chief said: “I think we’ve all learned and we’ve all improved. That day, I don’t think the comments were cruel, I think they were right. We got things wrong that day, our running wasn't good enough that day, and we showed them the next day, this needs to improve and we’ve been working on that ever since.

"So I’m glad that happened in a way, as I think we learned quite quickly and started changing quite quickly. But again, I’ve got to reinforce the message, nothing’s done yet. We’ve had a good night, but I just think we’re going the right way about it. That’s (a high-energy press) our plan for every game, we do that for every game. If people watch us more, they see that’s just what we do. Tonight we got the rewards for it, but it’s just how we play.”

A look at the stats demonstrate just how Town have come as the first game saw them down at 29 percent possession, with 27 shots on their goal, 12 on target, firing back with only nine and three troubling keeper Jason Steele themselves. Tuesday night saw the Hatters with less of ball once more, at 41 percent this time, but dominate every other metric, 18 shots, Steele having to pick the ball out of his net four times from the eight on target, as Brighton could only muster nine, Thomas Kaminski bothered twice, only once seriously, parrying from Danny Welbeck late on.

On such a turnaround in fortunes, Edwards continued: “The players deserve a lot of credit, we know what we are and we’re not going to go away from that. We’ve got really good athleticism from our team, so we trust that, especially on that last line defensively. It gives us the confidence that we can try and go for teams, not let them get their rhythm. Brighton are probably as complicated as it gets in the league, when they get it going, they can be tough, so we had to try and stop them starting completely, and in the main we did that, we did that really well.

"It allowed us to get control, we’ve been having more possession than a lot of teams recently. Today we got around 40 percent, but it’s what you do with it at the end and I thought we were really good with the ball as well and really effective, but it all came from the press, and that was really important.

“Most teams miss our press and most teams go direct and we have to deal with it as well. If you look at the stats we might be the team that has to defend long balls the most because we press aggressively, we’re certainly up there for that, so we’re ready for that. Brighton aren’t just going to change completely what they do, if you allow them to build they’ll build, if you come on to them they’ll try and miss it and get behind you, that’s what they do. It’s not rocket science, its complicated at times, but it’s really what everyone does in football. Space that the opposition give you they try and take it, so we’re going to give them space behind, they try and take that, we didn’t allow them to build or get a rhythm and thankfully it worked for us.”

Although the result saw Luton climb out of the bottom three, moving above Everton who played out a goalless draw with Fulham, Edwards wasn’t looking at it too much, knowing that with 17 games to go, and appeals against Premier League charges to be heard, Town still have plenty to do if they are going to have another season at this level. He added: “It doesn’t matter (being above the dotted line), it’s good, but we just want to get as many points as possible. It’s nice, probably better for our fans and everyone else at the moment, but we’ve got so many points to play for it doesn’t really matter right now.

"We’ve just got to keep our heads down and keep getting as many as we can. It’s still only three points, it’s good for our confidence and belief, but I think we’ve played well for a long time now. I know tonight will get more headlines, because of the result and who it’s against, I get that, but the performances have been good. Tonight we were just ruthless and maybe we could have been a bit more ruthless actually.

"I think we could have been better at times, I was still jumping around at four-nil as we got a little bit sloppy. It was a great night for us, but we’ve got to keep our foot down, we can’t come off it. Every day in training, every time we go on to that pitch we’ve got to be at full tilt otherwise we’ve got no chance and I think we’re showing that at the moment.”