Luton boss Rob Edwards confesses he might have written off their Premier League survival chances before the season started were he not the man sat in the dugout.
The Hatters' recent victory over Newcastle - their third win since returning to the top-flight - has brought them within two points of 17th-place Nottingham Forest. Their impressive streak at Kenilworth Road includes victories over Crystal Palace and leading against Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City in previous home games, although they only managed to secure a single point from these three matches.
A win against Sheffield United on Boxing Day could lift them out of the relegation zone for the first time since early December. The team's performances have noticeably improved since their initial four consecutive losses at the start of the season.
Despite their improved odds for survival, Edwards admitted that he might have dismissed Luton's chances if he weren't the manager. However, he didn't hold back his criticism of those who prematurely wrote off the team.
Speaking after the win over Newcastle, Edwards said: "To be honest I probably would have written us off as well, from outside. But I think there's ways of doing that and I think some people were disrespectful with how they did it.
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"That angered me a little bit, but I don't use that. I can't affect what other people think or say or write. Some people gave good rationale; smallest budget, promoted out the play-offs, first time in the Premier League. I get that. But some of the stuff that was written was crackers."
His team managed to make Newcastle look less than impressive for most of Saturday's victory. This was Luton's first game since their captain, Tom Lockyer, had a cardiac arrest during the previous match against Bournemouth.
He commented before the match that they wanted a win for the 29-year-old skipper who was discharged from hospital on Thursday. However, he insisted that defeating Newcastle wasn't purely driven by emotion.
"The performances have been good," he said. "We haven't won the game (against Newcastle) just because of what's happened. We wanted to do it for Tom, but the performances have been there.
"It was probably more complete, we were able to put it together for 97 minutes. Maybe against Arsenal we had 75 minutes, against City we had around 60.
"The players have been performing really well for a long time now. I think we've been changing the narrative around us as well, around the football club with those performances. (On Saturday) we just got the result."
* An AI tool was used to add an extra layer to the editing process for this story. You can report any errors to webhomepage@mirror.co.uk
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