Luton Town boss hails Wigan Athletic approach

Luton Town boss Rob Edwards praised Wigan Athletic's gamesmanship in Saturday's FA Cup draw - despite it upsetting his side's rhythm.
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The Hatters boss watched Latics dominate the opening 45 minutes at Kenilworth Road, with Tom Naylor giving the visitors a deserved lead.

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Harry Cornick's equaliser in first-half stoppage-time gave the Hatters hope, and the second half was all Luton, with Latics managing to hold out.

Rarmani Edmonds-Green heads the ball away against LutonRarmani Edmonds-Green heads the ball away against Luton
Rarmani Edmonds-Green heads the ball away against Luton
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The visitors almost nicked it in the dying seconds, with Naylor having a header tipped round the post, before having a header from the resulting corner controversially chalked off by the officials.

All that means a replay at the DW Stadium on Tuesday week, and Edwards chose to congratulate Latics rather than be too hard on his own side.

“We paid for a slow start, we made a slow start," he said.

"What they did well and it’s their prerogative, they’re away from home, they’ve obviously come off the back of a few defeats and they slowed it down well.

“They played it well, every time the ball went out it was 30 seconds or a minute for a throw-in or a goal kick, or a free-kick, and then it’s up to us.

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"We’ve got to lift it, we’ve got to lift that intensity and we didn’t do that well enough in the early stages of the game, so that was down to us.

"Then we conceded and it was hard for us to wrestle any control back.

"I felt we did that as the half went on, we huffed and puffed, a fantastic equaliser at a great time, which didn’t really change my half-time team talk too much, because we needed to lift things.

"Then I thought credit to the lads, we did have that intensity in the second half.

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"We played some really good football without that final cutting edge.

"We got into some really good areas and it’s up to us now to get together and try to work hard on creating good, big chances when we do have those kinds of games.

"Credit to them for defending well, with good numbers, and then at the very end, big credit to (goalkeeper) Ethan (Harvath) for a fantastic save.

"He was doing his job, but did it very, very well.”