Rob Edwards speaks on Watford sacking, life at Luton and how club compares with Forest Green

Rob Edwards speaks to Sky Sports on the Watford sacking, life at Luton and how his current club compares with Forest Green Rovers.

He also revealed what advice former boss Nathan Jones gave him about the Hatters job, with his side currently sitting 13th in the Championship standings, four points from the playoffs.

Nathan Jones left the club in favour of replacing Ralph Hasenhuttl at Southampton in November, with questions raised if he’s good enough to manage at Premier league level. You can watch what the Luton boss said by clicking on the photo below or scroll on to read…

“I don’t think we even had the opportunity to fail in 10 league games”, Edwards said of his time at Watford, as he gets set for Sunday’s game against Millwall, live on Sky Sports.

“We were a point outside the play-offs or whatever and starting to get players fit again but look, it’s done and I’m comfortable with it. I’m fully focused at Luton Town now and if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here and I’m really really pleased that I am.

“My eyes were wide open. I knew that could happen, that’s the nature of first team football. That could’ve happened at Forest Green, there’s always an element of risk when you take a job from both sides – the club giving you the chance and obviously you going there, but because it was such a short period of time, it was hard to fail in that amount of time.

“I will have learned stuff and I’ve reflected. I’ll be better for it, but without that, I wouldn’t be here now. After a couple of weeks, I feel at home here.

“Of course it frustrates you because I didn’t want to lose my job and felt that we could be successful there, but I think anyone that’s a head coach or a manager feels they have to back themselves and they can be a success wherever they’re at.

“But it happened and I dealt with it pretty quickly. It was during that international break, I won’t go into the details but I didn’t feel it coming. However, it did and that’s football.”

Edwards’ team was a surprise to many when they reached the Championship playoffs last year before falling to Huddersfield in two closely contested legs. Their new manager said that they were aiming to be “in shake up” once again.

After leaving Vicarage Road, he was linked to a variety of vacancies, including Middlesbrough, who beat Luton last weekend with a stoppage time winner.

After initial discussions with Gary Sweet, chief executive of the club, and Mick Harford, head of recruitment, the former centre-back felt that Luton was the best place to make a comeback.

Edwards said: “It fills me with a lot of confidence that they do, historically, give the managers a lot of time here.

“The conversations I’ve had with the football club, they want to try and help us as much as possible and help us build something moving forward and progress the club. It feels like there are similarities to Forest Green and that first one that we took where Mark Cooper had five years before me.

“That’s why coming here was the right thing. What was important in the next one was me picking the club and the owners I’m going to be working for and with as much as them picking me.

“They put people first. Of course we’re all competitive, we want to win football matches and build and everyone wants to get to the Premier League, but there’s a realism as well. There’s a human side to them and I really like that.

“We spoke about a lot of things, families and home not just stuff on the grass and football, and I liked that.

“They have done great, they achieved brilliant things last season and they’ve continued that this season as well. I think it would be stupid to come in and say ‘forget that, we’re going to go this way now’. We do loads of things well, let’s continue to do that and get better at it.

“Then let’s build and evolve and get better and grow as we move on. Nathan would’ve wanted to do that as well if he’d have stayed here; improve and keep getting better every week, every month and every game.”

Edwards spoke to Jones shortly after his appointment. A text sent by Edwards was quickly responded to with a phone number and a glowing reference about the club.

Edwards now faces the challenge of being embraced by his supporters in the same manner that Jones and Harford, a successful interim, were in recent years.

“I’m never going to compete with Mick, I can’t compete with Mick,” Edwards joked.

“I can only be me. I’m not Nathan, I’m certainly not Mick. We’ll try our best for this football club and that’s what we’ve said when we met any supporters. We can never guarantee a win, I wish you could, but you can guarantee we’ll give absolutely everything and the players will leave it all out there.

“Our fans are really intelligent and they get that. They want that fighting spirit, they want us to give everything for the badge and if we do that, they will appreciate it.

“He [Nathan] spoke in such glowing terms about the football club – the players, the staff, the people, the supporters and it was really refreshing and nice for me to hear those things really.

“If I wanted advice, I know he’d happily give that, but it was more a conversation about the people and the football club. He was so positive about it.”