Luton chief didn't think rare favourites tag affected the Hatters during disappointing Blades loss

​​Luton boss Rob Edwards didn’t think his side struggled after being given the favourites tag for the first time in their Premier League season when going down to a 3-1 defeat at home to Sheffield United on Saturday.

Having been the underdogs in each of their previous 22 top flight fixtures, and also the majority of their Championship clashes over the last few years as well, Town went into their contest at Kenilworth Road in uncharted territory, backed by most to pick up the victory. Having gone seven games unbeaten in all competitions and taking 11 points from a possible 18 to climb out of the bottom three, the Hatters found themselves up against a visiting Blades side who were staring down the barrel of relegation already, without an away win all campaign and hammered 5-0 on home soil by Aston Villa the previous weekend.

Despite that, and even though they finished with 75 percent possession, Luton were well beaten on the afternoon, as they only really threatened in a second half period that saw Carlton Morris score his sixth of the season from the penalty spot. Asked if the pressure ahead of the game, Town receiving a host of plaudits from the national media after beating Brighton & Hove Albion 4-0 and drawing 4-4 with Newcastle United, had got to his players, Edwards said: “I don't think so, I’d like to think not as I want us to get to the point where we are favourites more often.

"We know in this league we’re not going to be very often in games, today we were and I understand it, but I don't think the performance showed a team that was not comfortable with that. We did dominate massive spells of the game, but I'm going to take the penalties out and say it was a 2-0 loss. We got punished with two mistakes and at this level you can't. We made a couple of errors, but I'm not going to single anyone out.

"I don't think that had a bearing on the game, we just couldn't quite find enough quality in that final bit when we got behind them, or to get behind them, to cause them enough problems, because we had enough of the ball to do it. So I don't think it’s that, but we haven't had that tag for a long, long time now apart from one or two cup games.

Luton were given an early warning sign that they needed to be on it when James McAtee was left unmarked to curl wide of the target inside the opening 30 seconds. They failed to heed it though, as Cameron Archer got the better of Gabe Osho to race clear and beat Thomas Kaminski, before McAtee converted a controversial penalty given for handball against Reece Burke.

Edwards continued: “(Gustavo) Hamer made that run (early on) and they had that chance, which was something that we’d spoken about, but goals change everyone’s emotions in the game. We tried, we huffed and puffed. It’s all right having 70 percent of the ball, it’s what you do with it and at key moments we came up a little bit short.

"Then when we did have loads of possession in that final third we weren't quick enough, slick enough, or precise enough. When we did get behind them it was a wayward cross or not picking someone out. We didn't work the goalkeeper enough, so there’s no complaints, well done to them. They defended very, very well, and they were ruthless when they got their chances.”

The third goal, with 18 minutes to go, when Town were having the best spell in the game was key for Edwards too, as it came after Ross Barkley was dispossessed in the visitors half, who then poured forward. Osho appeared to have cut the danger out with an excellent run and challenge, before he also lost the ball, allowing a completely unmarked Vini Souza to clinically blast past Kaminski.

Edwards said: “We were on top then, if we hadn't made another mistake, we might have got something from the game, but we shot ourselves in the foot with the third goal. We gave the ball away in the middle of the pitch, we regained it around the edge of the box and lost it again and they were clinical when they got that chance. At 3-1 it’s tough and then they can really hang on to it, get bodies back and then defend their lead very, very well.”

With fellow strugglers Everton having been beaten by Manchester City before Luton took the field, Town could have given themselves a huge boost in the battle to stay in the top flight by claiming a precious three points.

However, it wasn’t something Edwards was going to beat himself up about afterwards, adding: “It was an opportunity, but there's still a long way to go, so we can’t think about that now. We can’t think about other teams and what they’re doing, we can only control ourselves and we didn’t do our job, if we don’t do our job it doesn’t matter what anyone else does."