Wayne Rooney previews Luton visit

Having been relegated from the Premier League last season, Luton Town started this year’s Sky Bet Championship campaign rather slowly, winning none of their first four games, but they have started to find their form of late.  

Since returning from the international break, Luton have beaten Millwall and Sheffield Wednesday, and head next to Home Park to meet Argyle, this Friday night.  

Head Coach Wayne Rooney is excited for an occasion under the lights and has offered up some observations on how the Hatters may approach the game.  

Rooney said: “They're an aggressive team, man-to-man. We have to be brave and make good decisions with the ball. I think that's really important when you play against a team who go man-to-man.  

“They're a very physical team; they put balls in your box. [We’re doing] a lot of work on that, defending the box, winning headers, winning first and second balls. It's going to be important on Friday.  

“What's also important is we play our game, and I think if we do that we will cause some problems. We're certainly capable of winning the game, but we know we have to be at our best and our concentration levels have to be very high.   

“I think the lads are in good spirits. They're confident, they’ve trained well, and we're ready for this game. Hopefully we can start the weekend off in a good way and give the fans a nice weekend.” 
 
Argyle have just one win this season, but that rather belies the fact that the Pilgrims have been in decent form. Last weekend, they ran table-topping West Bromwich Albion really close, and before that beat previous league leaders Sunderland at Home Park.  

Rooney has declared himself happy with the evolution of his squad and believes if they can augment their performances with a more clinical approach, the wins will follow.  

“I've been really pleased with the players,” Rooney said. “We would like a couple more points or maybe another win on the board, but I think what we're seeing is a really mature team; even though we're such a young team, we're playing with real maturity. We're handling the ball really well and controlling games at the right times as well.   

“The next step for us is, as we keep talking about, scoring goals. Against West Brom, we got in some really good areas, and we probably should have scored one or two goals.  

“We're evolving as a team. We're getting to know each other better each game. Performance-wise, I've been really pleased.  It's just now turning performances into results.”