Luton looking up despite defeats
The bad news for Luton is that they’ve already played the (notional) best three teams in the league at home. In the past five weeks, they’ve drawn with Liverpool, lost 4-3 to Arsenal to a 97th-minute winner, and gone down to a narrow 2-1 defeat by Manchester City. In all three games they’ve gone ahead. Playing the elite clearly suits Rob Edwards’ side. The issue is whether they can produce that quality of performance against lesser sides. They beat Crystal Palace 2-1 at home during that run, and that has to be the model. Playing a 3-4-3 gives them plenty of crossing options – and Andros Townsend remains a very fine deliverer of a ball, as he proved in laying on Elijah Adebayo’s goal against City – and they have the physicality to take advantage. The worry is that they are now four points adrift, even with Everton’s points deduction; they could do with finding some of the luck they’ve lacked against the big three against more beatable sides. Jonathan Wilson
