Matty Pearson says that he and his Town team-mates are striving to keep the Hatters ‘at this level’ after beating Brentford 2-1 at Kenilworth Road last night.
The defender stayed resolute alongside his colleagues to keep the Bees’ attacking threat down to a minimum, despite Ollie Watkins scoring late on, with an own goal from Shandon Baptiste and a superb strike from Martin Cranie enough for three points.
Now four points from safety, Pearson is rightly optimistic about the Town’s chances, explaining: “It’s getting to that stage of the season where you can see we all want to be here, and we’re trying to put in those performances to keep this club at this level.”
Keen to elaborate on the opposition's quality, the 26-year-old continued by saying: “You could see why they’re up there. I’m sure everyone could see today exactly how they’ve got that bit of magic, they’ve got those goals. But I thought we dealt with it reasonably well. These are the games where you have to dig deep and defend crosses, defend the majority of the game, but we took our chances today and we’ve got the win.”
It was no coincidence that Town were able to keep the Bees to just one the goal as Pearson continued: “We do our homework. We don’t just go into games not knowing what to expect. They are in the top three strike-forces in the league so we worked hard, we did our homework and it’s paid off.”
After the 7-0 defeat the Hatters suffered in the reverse fixture in November, the former Accrington and Barnsley man admitted the team ‘owed them one’.
“To go there and what they did to us, we owed them one and that’s football," he said. "I guess they’ve had that in their head and it might have been easier than what they thought, but in football you can’t rest on it, you’ve just to keep going every game.”
With three wins in their last four games, the defender applauded the home supporters who produced a brilliant atmosphere throughout the 90 minutes.
“Especially the atmosphere towards the end," he said. "Everyone had the nerves because it’s football, we all get a little nervous before the game, last five minutes or whatever it is.
“Towards the end and after the game the atmosphere was brilliant and I think we’re going to need that throughout the remaining games. We’ve just got to keep believing and keep going, keep that atmosphere, positive thinking and hopefully we can get better."
With fellow strugglers Stoke City the visitors to Kenilworth Road on Saturday, Pearson added: “It’s just another game for us. I wouldn’t go too deep into how big of a game it is or whatever. We go into every game trying to win. It’s not we must win this one or we must win this one.
"We’ve just got to do our best on the pitch and hopefully that gets us over the line and gets us the win. Stoke are in a similar situation to us, they need wins as well so it’s teed up to make a good game."