Luton chief wary of Maja’s threat despite Baggies’ goal-shy October.
Luton chief Rob Edwards knows that his Hatters side need to be wary of the one of the Championship’s leading scorer in Josh Maja who is expected to lead the line for opponents West Bromwich Albion at Kenilworth Road this evening.
The 25-year-old came through at Sunderland, netting 17 goals in 49 matches for the Black Cats, including scoring in the 1-1 League One draw with Luton back in August 2018. He then headed to France later that season, spending four years with Bordeaux, although did have two fairly unsuccessful loan spells back in England at Fulham and Stoke during his four years with the Ligue 1 side.
Maja returned to England permanently in August 2023, heading to the Hawthorns, but only scored once in 12 matches last term, with ankle ligament damage ruling him out for over half of the campaign. A hat-trick on the opening day of this season during the 3-1 victory at QPR saw him up and running though, as he went on to score seven goals in his first seven outings, a tally that is only bettered by Norwich City’s Borja Sainz, who has 10 to his name already.
The Nigerian international is on a run of five matches without finding the net though, but despite that, Edwards knows he is someone Town’s makeshift defence will need to keep a close eye on, saying: “He’s really intelligent how he plays, but then he arrives in the box and is there in the right place at the right time as well. He helps them in the build, drops into those false nine positions and is really intelligent. He knows what he’s doing and why he’s doing it, but then he’s in the right position at the right time to score as well, so he’s had a fantastic season so far.”
It’s not just Maja who the goals have dried up for though, the Baggies entire team struggling since a prolific start to the campaign. Having scored 12 in their first seven games, with five victories, it left them sitting at the top of the table. However, a 1-0 home loss to Middlesbrough at the start of October has led to a run of just one goal in their last five matches, that in a 1-1 draw at Oxford United, while no victories in six means they have dropped down to sixth in the standings.
With Carlos Corberan at the helm, a manager who has always enjoyed plenty of success over Town, back to the days when he was in charge of Huddersfield Town, engineering three wins and four draws from his seven unbeaten matches against Luton, then despite their indifferent October, Edwards knows Albion represent a huge threat to the Hatters’ attempts to get back to winning ways themselves.
He added: “Carlos Corberan is a really good coach and they’ve got very good individuals. It’s West Brom. For however long I can remember if they’re in this league, they’re strong, and that’s always the case. They’re good, you know exactly what they are and they can make tweaks depending on the opposition as well, so tactically they’ll always be a little bit of a different way of doing things, like everyone does.
