Luton chief praises character shown by Town's players to hit back after Eagles' immediate equaliser

Town boss Rob Edwards felt his players demonstrated unbelievable character to come back from the body blow of conceding moments after taking the lead to secure a maiden home Premier League win of the season against Crystal Palace on Saturday.

A closely-fought encounter had ticked past the 70-minute mark when the deadlock was finally broken, Carlton Morris getting a touch to Alfie Doughty’s left-wing corner and Teden Mengi applying the finishing touch for his first ever senior goal.

A VAR check for offside against Tahith Chong and a substitution that saw Elijah Adebayo replace Carlton Morris led to a delay before the Eagles could kick off once more. Having done so, they then got the ball out to the right where Michael Olise tricked his way past Amari’i Bell and then set off for the area, cutting in to curl a stunning equaliser past the otherwise unbeatable Thomas Kaminski.

The goal was a mirror image of Burnley’s in early October when Adebayo had drawn Town level with six to play, only for the Clarets to immediately retake the lead when Jacob Bruun Larsen got the better of Reece Burke to find the top corner in similar fashion.

Although the home supporters and players were clearly shell-shocked by the speed of the response, they didn’t let it affect them, Chong and Ross Barkley doing well to find Chiedozie Ogbene on the right, his quite brilliant cross turned home by the stretching substitute Jacob Brown with seven minutes left

This time Luton held on in for what seemed like an eternity though, 12 minutes of stoppage time added, which was lengthened by Chong’s head injury, as Jefferson Lerma glanced against the post in the last few seconds, referee Jarred Gillet’s final whistle soon afterwards allowing Town’s players to drop to their knees in sheer relief.

Speaking afterwards, Edwards said: “The players deserve a lot of credit there because they could’ve been quite flat after conceding, but they found a way and it was a brilliant counter-attacking goal.

“For us to get the first one, then be pegged back within a minute or so again, lightning struck twice like it did against Burnley.

“I’m thinking wow, not again. I felt flat, I can imagine how the players felt, so they deserve a lot of credit to pick themselves and go and find a winning goal.”

Prior to Mengi’s goal, Palace thought they themselves had taken the lead when Odsonne Edouard broke away to reach a long pass forward, and as Kaminski came out to narrow the angle, was denied by a terrific saving challenge from skipper Tom Lockyer, only for the ball to rebound off his hand and and favourably as the ex-Celtic striker tucked into an empty net,

It was a clear offence though, similar to Joe Taylor’s for Luton at Wembley in the play-off, as although the on-field officials somehow didn’t spot it, thankfully VAR did its job, relaying the message to Gillett who disallowed the strike as the scores remained goalless.

Although Edwards had been unaware of the handball, he knew it was a vital decision, continuing: “No (I didn’t see it), but the guys behind me were telling me it looked like handball.

"To go 1-0 down in this league, it’s difficult to come back, we would have had to obviously, but that was a big moment.”

By then, Palace had been hit by a double injury blow in the opening 10 minutes of the second period as influential midfielder Eberechie Eze was forced off and then Cheick Doucoure went down after catching his studs in the turf, as the £18m midfielder had to leave via a stretcher having suffered a serious looking injury.

Edwards didn’t think it gave his side too much of an advantage though with the visitors still able to bring on Jordan Ayew and Will Hughes in their places, the duo signed for fees totalling almost £30m in their careers.

He added: “Eze’s certainly a big miss for them, I think he’s arguably their best player.

"For him to go off, probably weakens them a little bit and I don’t want to sound disrespectful to anyone at all as they’re still bringing on really good players, but I think he is excellent.

"But no, not at all, I didn’t see it that way (as an advantage), they’ve still got really good players on the pitch. My main concern was making sure the players stayed in the moment, stayed switched on and stayed in the game as that was a long delay. It felt like we had half time and then that, so felt like the second half didn’t get started, we had to stay warm and just keep the mind sharp really.”