Luton forward will face Coventry with his confidence boosted by Sky Blues double

Luton striker Carlton Morris will head into tomorrow’s Championship play-off final against Coventry with his confidence boosted from the brace of goals he managed against the Sky Blues earlier in the season.

With Mark Robins’ team keeping the second most clean sheets in the division this term with 20, one behind Burnley, they added a further two more to their tally in the play-off semi-final 1-0 aggregate win over Middlesbrough.

They also possessed the fourth best defensive record, only bettered by the Clarets, Sheffield United and Luton, with keeper Ben Wilson named in the Championship Team of the Year as well.

However, Morris managed a double inside 15 minutes when the two teams drew 2-2 at Kenilworth Road back in September, taking his tally to three in eight games against the side, having scored once for MK Dons when the two teams were in League One during the 2019-20 season as well.

That makes Coventry the joint second team he has scored the most goals against during his career, as going into the game at Wembley Stadium, Luton’s club record signing said: “Every little thing we take as a confidence boost.

"It’s nice as a forward to have that faith in your back-line that they’re going to do everything they can to keep the ball out of our net and it leaves us to focus on putting the ball in theirs, keep it nice and simple.”

Morris, who scored 20 goals in the regular season, the first Town forward to do that in the second tier in over 40 years, is expected to lead a double pronged attack with Elijah Adebayo at the home of English football, his team-mate reaching 10 when netting in the 2-1 play-off first leg defeat to Sunderland.

The former Walsall and Fulham frontman’s record against Coventry is even better, scoring four goals in five matches for the Hatters, including the winner in the 1-0 success at the CBS Arena last term.

Adebayo has never been on the losing side either when the two teams have met, three wins and two draws, as on their partnership which has managed a weighty 30 goals this term, Morris said: “There’s a really nice balance between me and Eli, from competitiveness and both wanting to score and support for each other.

"We really want to set each other up a lot as well.

“We’re always looking for each other and playing off each other.

"Those relationships develop with time and we’ve played a lot of football together this season, learning each other’s game.”

With the winners of the tie reaching the Premier League, and going up against some of the elite clubs in the world, Morris felt the pair could cause some problems in top flight, saying: “If we were to get to the Premier League, that’s what me and Eli do to teams.

"We cause problems and ask questions.

"There’s a confidence with both of us, not an arrogance, but a confidence, that if we both turn up on any given game day, there’s not many centre backs that would enjoy the task of handling the pair of us.”

After Luton finished the regular season with a 14-game unbeaten record, the same as when they last reached the top flight in the 1981-82 campaign, Coventry themselves ended with just one defeat in 17 matches.

On the key to beating Mark Robins’ team, Morris continued: “They’ve been really tight, Coventry don’t make it to the play-off final by fluke.

"They’re a really good team, the starting 11 and the 18-man squad, the ones that come off the bench, they’re a really good side.

“We’ve been working hard and it’s just about soaking up information from the manager and staff.

"They work so diligently, watch hours and hours of footage to find where we can use our advantages best and then it’s down to us players to soak up that information and execute the game-plan.”

Going into the contest, Luton will want to produce exactly the same kind of performance that saw them overpower Sunderland at Kenilworth Road last week, as Morris added: “That’s what we come to expect of ourselves.

"Just 11 of the boys that started being at it from the first whistle, on second balls.

"If we’re playing direct to me and Eli or that we’re getting the ball down and playing out from the back, there’s a really nice variety to our game.”