What a day. It began at Luton bus station shortly before 9am, and ended in a similar location just before Match of the Day kicked off. What a shame the BBC didn't recall Garth Crooks to the pundit sofa for one night only to reflect on his ridiculous comments made a few weeks ago. 3,000 Luton fans who were up on Merseyside know that this Hatters side are going to hold their own in the Premier League. A dash from the bus just after 3pm meant we missed the first few minutes but by the time we were standing in the Bullens Upper Luton were well on top. A succession of corners delivered expertly by Alfie Doughty gave the Toffees warning. At the third time of asking Carlton rose like a colossus to thunder a header on to the bar via a Pickford flick. As the ball came rocketing down, Ashley Young must have imagined he was back at the Watford training ground and thought it was time for a shimmy. He had reckoned without Tommy Tommy Lockyer who charged forward and the ball crashed into the ne...
We've got a point. Stop the clocks, and all the silly pundits who were talking about Luton losing all 38 games or going down by Christmas (Crooks). Five games in, and demonstrable improvements game by game, saw The Hatters deserve to take all three points, in a game they dominated from start to finish. But one defensive lapse cost us the victory, in a league where mistakes cost more than anywhere else.
Sir Robbie made two changes from the Fulham game, with Chieo in for his first start, and Alfie Doughty recalled on the left. That partnership ran rings around a poor Wolves side all day long. Chong and Andersen dropped to the bench. Tough on Mads given his performances but Rob does like the left sideness of Bell at centre back, and unless you're going to drop the captain, the selection made sense.
The little known Josh Smith took charge of this game, one of the newly promoted referees. And he was in the centre of the action. Edwards took to the field in his now trademark knitwear, perhaps borrowing from the Jamie Redknapp range.
The recall of Doughty answered the long throw question - as twice in the first half Alfie was able to launch it. The highlight early on was a fabulous piece of skill from Carlton who chopped back inside, created some space, and fired a thunderbolt from 20 yards that crashed against the post.
The game got spicy shortly before half time when Lockyer was involved on the floor with Bellegarde and the Frenchmen kicked out Beckham style before rightly being shown the red.
A rare 45 minutes clean sheet arrived just like Fulham last week, but Town fell behind on 50 minutes when Neto escaped the attentions of Lockyer to smash home completely against the run of play. The Town narrowly escaped going two down when Kaminski did well to twice block from close range. But momentum stayed with Town and after four quick crosses inside two minutes, the pressure told when Kabore's cross was handled unluckily in the box and the ref gave a penalty. Match of the Day went to town on what a bad decision it was, but the pundits in the comfy Salford green room were strangely quiet on the blatant shove on Morris last week, or the ball hitting James Ward Prowse flush on the arm in injury time against West Ham.
Morris made no mistake with the penalty, but Luton struggled in the past 25 minutes to create genuine chances, Ogbene having a goal chalked off for a narrow offside, and Woodrow going for an inexplicable lob when there were 5 Wolves players virtually on the goal line.
For a side apparently only averaging 30% possession in our first 4 league outings, all the stats against Wolves were massively in our favour. 20 shots, 4 on target, 310 completed passes, and 57% possession.
Play like that at home every game this season and we won't lose many.
A tough test at Everton next week, but before that a chance for the reserves to progress in the Cup away at Exeter.
Town: Kaminski; Kaboré (sub Adebayo 85), Doughty (sub Giles 72), Burke, Lockyer, Bell; Nakamba, Lokonga (sub Mpanzu 57); Obgene, Morris, Brown (sub Woodrow 72).
Sub not used: Krul, Andersen, Berry, Chong, Mengi.