By admin 
Liam Walsh received a 36-second red card against Oxford United last night. Luton manager Rob Edwards called it a “wrong decision” from the midfielder, but he also praised his team’s fortitude in handling the situation as they managed to draw 2-2 at Kenilworth Road.
In an attempt to shift the momentum back in favor of the Hatters, Walsh—who only recently joined the team on a free transfer after leaving Swansea City in the summer—and Cauley Woodrow were added with 76 minutes remaining. It looked as though the visitors would soon notch another goal after rallying from a 2-0 deficit to tie the game.
But with the ball loose in midfield following a goal-kick forward from Thomas Kaminski, the former Everton player foolishly lunged into a reckless two-footed tackle on Siriki Dembélé, leaving referee James Bell with no choice but to send him off for what must be the fastest red card ever received by a Luton player in the team’s history.
Last night, Liam Walsh was substituted for Luton just 36 seconds after entering the game.
When asked if he had spoken with Walsh about the incident—the first time he had seen red in his career occurred at Yeovil Town in March 2016 when he was given the boot just 16 minutes into a 3-0 Conference loss at Cambridge United—Edwards responded, “Not at the moment, I don’t want to, no.” It appears to be a red. Walshy is a skilled young man; that was simply the worst choice to make at the time. He is 26 or 27 years old, and as humans, we all make mistakes from time to time.
Edwards continued, “No, not with that, no,” refusing to attribute the occurrence to the weather either, citing the Kenilworth Road pitch’s plenty of surface water as a result of heavy rain both before and during the match. It had nothing to do with the challenging playing and standing conditions—they were the same for both teams.
After trailing by ten, however, Luton appeared to be the stronger team as they posed the greater threat in the final moments, coming dangerously close to winning when keeper Jamie Cumming parried Teden Mengi’s header before Elijah Adebayo could seize the opportunity at the far post. Edwards responded, “There’s no other option other than to be diligent and compact and do the work then,” when asked why he thought that was the case.
“At the end, we brought up the topic in the dressing room. We have excellent press, and we can run forward and press quickly to get the ball back, but we must make sure we do it both sideways and backwards. When you’re down to 10 men, there’s nowhere to hide. It’s possible that there was a small amount of incompetence in rushing back or across when we were either out of possession or had lost the ball, but that can’t be the case.
“Now that we’re down to 10, failing to put in the effort exposes you too readily. I want to give tribute to Reuell Walters, who I felt played incredibly well when he came on. I also want to give credit to Cauley, who played really well in a different position when we had to make a change, playing center midfield with 10 men. So when a few of those guys came on, I was extremely happy with them because they fought really well and showed some true passion.
“We looked more threatening and gave up less opportunities on the other end, but we were also more disciplined and couldn’t rush forward and push as much as we would have liked to. I was happy with how we concluded and the boys’ enthusiasm since they refused to give up or give in.
“After leading 2-0, it was a challenging night for us, and the tough atmosphere and feeling around the place made it all the more encouraging when they came through.” We’ll have to accept some of it given how we concluded, their organization, hard work, and unity, as well as some quality to genuinely stay a threat and continue in the game.