Luton manager Matt Bloomfield hailed his team’s character after watching them ignite their bid for Championship survival by defeating fellow strugglers Derby 1-0 at Pride Park.
Millenic Alli’s early strike proved enough to settle a contest of two distinct halves.
The forward, a January signing from Exeter, fired home after 10 minutes when John Eustace’s side failed to deal with a corner.
The visitors deservedly led at the break but came under heavy pressure during the second with Jerry Yates forcing a fine reaction save from Thomas Kaminski and Mark McGuinness, who had turned the ball back across the box for Alli to convert, clearing off the line when Marcus Harness pounced on the rebound.
Substitute Kayden Jackson also tested Kaminski but Derby were unable to fashion an equaliser and
Luton remain in the bottom three but are now behind their opponents on goal difference alone.
Bloomfield said: “Our results have been very good away from home. We knew this was going to be a tough game here but we knew we could win.
“In the first half, I thought we were excellent and played so well. In the second, we had to weather the storm a bit but we did that to a man. I thought we defended incredibly when we needed it.
“We didn’t actually ask for anything other than a performance today. If you put in match-winning performances then the victories are surely going to follow.
“But nothing is done yet. We are in there fighting and we have given ourselves a chance.
“I keep getting asked when the picture at the bottom will get sorted and I don’t know. It could go right down to the wire and I think it probably will.”
Bloomfield added: “The resilience the players showed was excellent and that’s got to continue. You can see that the belief is growing.”
Eustace, the Derby head coach, was left to rue missing a chance to pull clear of the drop zone.
He said: “I’m disappointed to lose the game and we looked a little bit anxious at the beginning. We didn’t get on the front foot.
“In the second, I couldn’t fault them. We had a full house behind us and we changed a few things during the interval, making slight changes in midfield and further forward.
“We just told the lads to forget about everything and not worry about the situation. Just to go out there and play their game. They did that and, genuinely, I couldn’t fault their attitude at all.
“Listen, goals change games and we had some opportunities. We have spoken about the need to be more clinical in the final third and, at times of late, we have been. It’s just about getting that consistency.
“It was an opportunity for us to get three important points and obviously we didn’t. So there was a lot of disappointment in the dressing room. But we’ve got an opportunity in the next game to do that and so we’ve got to get straight back to it.”
Eustace, revealing goalkeeper Jacob Zetterstrom is set to miss the rest of the season with a broken eye socket, confirmed Nathaniel Mendez-Laing could do likewise after suffering the same injury during the opening skirmishes.
“We’ve just got to get on with it,” Eustace added. “We can’t do anything about it.”
