Luton Town 2-2 Oxford United: U's battle back for point

Oxford fought back from two goals down to draw 2-2 with Luton in the Championship at Kenilworth Road.

Goals from Tyler Goodrham and Ruben Rodrigues cancelled out earlier strikes from Jordan Clark and Tom Krauss.

Luton substitute Liam Walsh was sent off seconds after coming on and the hosts had goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski to thank for not conceding a third.

The Kenilworth Road crowd was noisy from the start as fans looked to inspire their side back to winning ways after a 3-1 defeat at Wayne Rooney's Plymouth on Friday.

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And the Hatters almost stormed into a seventh-minute lead. Marauding wing-back Alfie Doughty skipped down the left and picked out Clark in the box. The captain controlled the ball but he chose power over accuracy and his effort fizzed wide of the left post.

Clark made no mistake with his second attempt to give the Luton the lead three minutes later. Krauss pressed high as Oxford opted to play out from the back and his pressure forced an error out of Rodrigues, allowing Clark to smash home from six-yards out.

Oxford responded well and Luton needed goal-line heroics from Teden Mengi and a tip wide from Kaminski to keep their lead intact before Oxford's Idris El Mizouni sliced an effort wide.

Amid heavy rainfall Krauss' through ball skimmed across the surface perfectly for the surging Elijah Adebayo but the striker's goalless start to the new campaign continued as he scuffed his effort wide of the right-hand post.

Krauss doubled Luton's lead in the 37th minute. After a looped ball over the top tempted U's goalkeeper Jamie Cumming to rush off his line, Jacob Brown showed great composure to slip Krauss into space before he did the rest with a first-time finish placed neatly into the bottom right corner.

A stunning strike from Goodrham brought Oxford back into the match on the stroke of half-time. El Mizouni passed it to the midfielder and he curled a long-range effort into the top right corner.

Luton sat back at the start of the second half, inviting pressure from purple shirts, and Kyle Edwards stormed down the right and delivered a low cross to Rodrigues, who produced the deftest of touches to guide the ball past Kaminski to make it 2-2 in the 54th minute.

Luton then relied on Kaminski to bail them out. Their number one performed an exceptional triple stop, including a reaction save with his feet to deny Mark Harris from yards out.

A terrible high tackle from substitute Walsh saw the Hatters reduced to 10 men in the 77th minute but they held on for a point.

The managers

Luton's Rob Edwards:

"It's our own fault. We're not in a great moment and it was a lack of confidence, belief and the timing of their first didn't help. It's our doing and we gave them the opportunity.

"They got the equalising goal, they had the momentum and they deserved it. They made tweaks and we had to adjust, then we went down to 10 men so it was difficult.

"The crowd are edgy at the moment, they're demanding more and rightly so. It affected us.

"Confidence is not something where you can click your fingers and magic up so that's going to come with us continuing to put hard work on the grass and results.

"I was pleased with the way we finished, the lads didn't cave in, they didn't go under. It was a difficult night for us."

Oxford's Des Buckingham:

"That was a wonderful advert for our football club. We've come again to another Premier League team three days after playing another one.

"We gave away two sloppy goals which put them two up. I just said to them in there, we spoke about the effort and the work rate from Saturday's game, and to add quality with the ball.

"I'm delighted with what I've just seen. To come back into the game after two setbacks and create several chances - in the second half, I thought we played some wonderful football and should have gone on to win the game."

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