Ogbene believes Eagles win can be a huge boost to Luton's efforts to stay up

Town attacker Chiedozie Obgene believes the manner of Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Crystal Palace can be a huge boost to his side’s efforts in staying in the Premier League this season.

The Hatters had gone into a game that most had put down as a must win contest against the Eagles, due to the incredibly tough December that is coming Luton’s way, without a victory on home soil this term.

It looked like those hopes had slipped through their grasp once more as after Teden Mengi put the hosts in front on 72 minutes, Town were instantly pegged back, Michael Olise getting the better of Amari’i Bell to curl home a brilliant strike.

However, Luton found a second wind on this occasion, and managed to retake the lead once more, Ogbene’s wonderful cross slid home by Jacob Brown with seven minutes to go.

The Hatters then just about navigated the closing stages, plus a near 15 minutes that were added on as well, to ensure they picked up what could be a massive victory in the context of the campaign.

It certainly felt that way to Ogbene, as he said: “I think it was a win that we needed, especially the way the season’s going. We know what's happening around us and that’s given us a boost, but the manager made a clear point that we’re not just here to stay in a compact shape, we want to pick up points and we need to do that by winning games, not just by drawing games.

"When we scored the goal and they got the equaliser it was quite deflating as we’d been there before, but I think the boys showed character to pick ourselves up knowing where we’d been. To get the win gave us a massive boost.”

With any performance there were certain elements to nitpick, manager Rob Edwards declaring it wasn’t a ‘perfect’ display by any means.

One of those would be the way that Town allowed themselves to concede within 60 seconds of scoring, as they had done against Burnley back in October, which is something Ogbene knows needs working on.

He continued: “We need to look at that as we don’t know why things like that happen. We’re very critical, Amari’i did well to stay with him, if you’re self critical, maybe Amari’i should have shown him down the line, but the quality of players in the Premier League is phenomenal and they can produce stuff like that.

"Stuff like that is very difficult to stop, yes we can maybe stop it at source, do we stay in shape? Do we press? But we’re at home, we want to get on the front foot, we don’t want to sit back after a goal, so I don’t know.

"But I’m just so happy, before against Burnley, the deflation, we didn’t let that bother us, we just kept going and got a good result for everyone.”

Ahead for the second time in the game, Luton’s back-line then threw their bodies on the line during the lengthy period of stoppage time, the likes of Mengi, Tom Lockyer and Gabe Oshi standing firm in the face of an aerial onslaught from the visitors, who threw on the imposing Jean-Philippe Mateta in the latter stages.

Town’s in-form winger believes that kind of commitment in protecting their advantage must be the blueprint for the rest of the campaign, as he added: “In this league it’s very difficult, you can see three points, everyone has blown a sweat out on the pitch to get the points and it’s not like we won 4-1, we won 2-1.

"It’s narrow, it’s very difficult to come here and say we’re going to win three, four-nil, so yes we know the margins. We lost against Tottenham, but we always wanted to be better, we were coming in a bit upset that we lost.

"Towards the last 10 minute of this game where everybody was defending for their lives, we have to learn to defend like that, because that’s going to be crucial for us staying up.”