After two successive defeats, in the Championship, the Hatters got back to winning ways, against Sheffield Wednesday, at Hillsborough.
With no points from the last two games, Nathan Jones shuffled his starting eleven and gave full debuts to Joe Morrell and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.
It was a move that paid dividends with the Hatters producing one of their best performances of the season so far.
It is probably fair to say that the 1-0 final score did not do the Hatters justice.
The final scoreline could, and should, have been a lot wider.
Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu will get the credit for scoring the winning goal with a fine shot from the edge of the area but other chances, for other players, went begging.
In the first half, Danny Hylton saw an effort cleared off the line while Mpanzu was guilty of shooting wide in a one-on-one with the Sheffield Wednesday keeper.
The winning goal came in the 74th minute just three minutes after our hosts had been reduced to 10-men after Joost van Aken was shown the red-card after a high challenge on Mpanzu.
Leading 1-0 and playing against 10-men, the Hatters could have stretched their lead but saw efforts from Rhys Norrington-Davies and Ryan Tunnicliffe hit the woodwork.
Talking to the media after the game and as reported by The BBC, Nathan Jones enthused about the performance, remarking:
“I’m delighted by the performance and especially the win. We’ve stuck so far to a formula that did well for us last year. But we want to be more fluent. We have to evolve so we tried something.
“I thought we were excellent, I really did. We had a chance after 30-odd seconds. They had to change their system to combat us which was a bonus because we worked on that.
“That’s the group we have, I’m really proud.”
The win lifts the Hatters back into a healthy 9th position.
Next up for the Hatters is a home fixture, on Wednesday evening, against a Nottingham Forest side who are struggling in 19th position in the Championship table.
COYH’s
Luton Town v Nottingham Forest?
Luton Town to Win!
Nottingham Forest to Win!
A Draw!
Previous article by Mad Hatter
This Luton Hero Does Not Deserve The Flack He Is Currently Getting
Great performance yesterday, I hope NJ plays Hylts & Collins upfront together against Forest. Feel if Danny gets consistent game time he will come good & after his performance at Sheffield think he deserves to play. Our four wins have been against the bottom four, so to beat Forest languishing 6th from bottom would be another welcome 3 points & very achievable but of course won’t be easy with the championship being the beast it is. COYH
Hi all, a really solid all round performance yesterday that on another day would have been 0-3 and totally deserved and all that without three of the first names on the team sheet in Collins, Cornick & Rea. Morrell, Dewsbury-Hall and Lockyer all looked very comfortable and will take some dislodging from the starting line up, just hope NJ doesn’t try to get too clever and rotate more than is necessary. Pelly was Pelly and well summed up by NJ after the game, if he eradicated his mistakes he wouldn’t be a Luton player he would of had a big money move by now, with 17 wins and 1 draw coming from his 18 goals scored may explain why he never seems to get dropped. Wednesday were very poor and looked like a side with zero home wins in 8 months but for us to already be 16 points and effectively 13 points up on the bottom two sides after only 7 x games is a wonderful sight and bodes very well for the remainder of the season.
COYH