Hatter boss Rob Edwards has demanded Luton ‘snap out’ of the losing run they are on to prevent it becoming a habit they struggle to shift.
The Town chief cut a hugely frustrated figure after watching his side let a 1-0 slip away against QPR on Friday evening, two quickfire second half goals enough to give the visitors victory at Kenilworth Road. It means that going into the international break this weekend, Luton have failed to win a single game this term, with three defeats and a draw from their opening four Championship matches, also knocked out of the Carabao Cup on penalties as well.
Having ended the Premier League campaign with five losses from six, and now winning just once in their last 23 fixtures, asked if such a sequence is seeing losing becoming a mental block for his players, Edwards said: “Potentially at the moment, it seems that way. We’ve got to snap out of it, find that killer edge, stick the ball in the back of the net when we’ve got that big opportunity, as that takes some of the pressure away if you do make a mistake.
“We can’t give big chances and silly, silly goals away, as it’s just that same story. It seems as I’m saying the same sorts of things (as last year) and I don’t want to. There were a lot of good things, but then we’re losing the game. Last year, some people would be able to take it as you can play well but lose to Villa or Chelsea or Liverpool or Arsenal, or whatever, with all due respect to everyone in this league now, we’re not going to get that. People are going to say well that’s not good enough, we’ve got to own it, I can’t keep saying the same things, we’ve got to make sure we turn things into results.”
Although the start to the season sees Luton sitting second bottom in the table with just a mere point to their name, Edwards wasn’t about to begin panicking as he remains fully confident the squad in place has enough about them to get through their sticky patch. With all his starting XI on Friday, bar summer signings Shandon Baptiste, Mark McGuinness and Reuell Walters, having been part of the side who were in the top flight last term, on the recent form, he added: “It’s happened loads of times where people have started a little bit slower and they get it going.
“That’s got to be us now, we’ve got to make sure we turn that around. There’s a lot of good things, ultimately what’s happened will have knocked one or two, so we have to make sure we pick ourselves up. We have a couple of weeks to go and work on it, which we need to do, so I’ve got no doubt in the group of players that are there. We know they’re good enough to do well in this league, we know that, you’ve all seen them perform for a long period of time. We’ve got a good squad and the results will come, but at the moment we’re having a very difficult start.”
