Robinson happy to play any role Still chooses as he shines from the bench in Chester win

You have to play the role you’re given admitted Hatters midfielder Matt Robinson after helping to swing Saturday’s game against Chester in Luton’s favour, writes Mark Wood.
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Having started the week before in the 1-0 home defeat to Woking, Robinson saw himself benched for the visit of the Seals, but again delivered for Luton from the bench.

With the scores goalless, his cross fortuitously looped in just three minutes after coming on to set Town on their way to a crucial victory.

He said: “You play the role that you are given and if you are asked to come on with 20 minutes left, with five minutes left, you’ve got to try and do something to sway his (boss John Still’s) mind next time that he does pick the team.

“Obviously Paz (Andy Parry) has come in and he’s done a job, but when the gaffer thought it was time to switch he did so and it obviously paid off.

“It’s always nice to come on and change the game, especially when it’s 0-0 and you feel like you’ve actually fully impacted it and made the difference.

“I’m not saying I’ve made the difference, but the lads made the difference, and certainly we turned it on in that period of time I was on the pitch.”

His goal was cruel on gutsy City, who had given as good as they got for well over an hour.

But experienced striker Paul Benson admitted that’s the way it often goes in football, as he continued: “They say you get more luck when you’re up the top than when you are down the bottom.

“Maybe that was true today because Chester scrapped for their lives down the bottom and didn’t really get that slice of luck that we got.

“It was a well controlled second half I thought. I thought we dug in really well after the first half and maybe we just deserved that little bit of luck.”

Benson was impressed by Chester on the day, and revealed he always felt it was going to take something special to get Luton firing again.

He continued: “They’re not a bad side and they kind of did what Alfreton did to us and sat two in front of the back four which made it hard to get any sort of balls into front men’s feet or even into the hole where Pelly (Ruddock Mpanzu) was and Laws (Alex Lawless) was at one point.

“So it made it hard to feed that in which is where we’ve been getting most of our joy this season.

“So we had to try and mix it up a little bit and I think Robbo’s goal was just the way that we were going to break the deadlock for us today with something like that.

“Because we had chances before that, I had a chance, Dre (Andre Gray) had a chance, Scotty (Griffiths) had a chance, there were chances which on other days we would have taken.

“I think it was going to take something like that just to get us going again.”

Chester are embroiled in a fight for their Conference lives and Robinson believes it is Town’s firepower that sets them apart.

He added: “We’re at different ends of the spectrum, they’re fighting to stay in it and we’re fighting to get out of it.

“So both teams had something to play for, but for very different things and I think when that’s the case you’re going to get a tight game.

“It is sometimes that slice of luck that you need for things to turn around and once we get a goal we look like getting two, three, four it just depends when it is.

“If we score in the first half it ends up being six and if we score with 15 minutes to go it ends up being three anyway so I think that’s a very good sign.”

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