Ian Evatt is relishing an FA Cup replay with Luton Town after his side pushed the Premier League side all the way at Kenilworth Road, writes Pete Oliver.
Wanderers earned a home meeting with the Hatters the week after next thanks to a goalless draw in their third-round meeting.
The replay at the Toughsheet Community Stadium will add to a busy schedule for the Whites, who face a Bristol Street Motors last-16 clash at Accrington Stanley this coming Wednesday night.
But Evatt has no complaints after seeing his side wipe out a two-division gap in an entertaining tie in front of 1,600 travelling fans at Town.
“All we want to do is make our town and our support proud of the football team again and I think we’re a long way to doing that,” said the Wanderers’ boss.
“It’s an extra game but why not? We’re in the hat. We will have to manage the extra game. It wasn’t win or bust today.
“We want to be competitive and stay in it and hopefully this will be financially rewarding for us as a football club, which is important as well.
“I would love us to sell that out and make it a really intense atmosphere, the same as Luton fans did for us today. In the second half they were almost sucking that ball into that goal, but we stood up to it and we deserve a replay and I’m looking forward to that game.”
Luton went closest to a winner when a Matt Doughty shot hit a post and VAR ruled out a possible penalty when he was challenged by the impeccable Will Forrester as the pair hunted down the rebound.
But Wanderers carried most of the attacking threat before the break and also looked capable of grabbing a late winner in front of the packed away end.
“I’m delighted with large parts of today and I think a draw was a fair result,” added Evatt.
“I think in the second half we had to ride our luck at times, but I’ve said a lot that hard work puts you where good luck can find you and we defended our box really well.
“I was delighted with the first half and I think we edged it really. We had some really important moments we didn’t quite take but I think we were comfortable with what we were trying to do and what the plan was.
“At the start of the second half they had a spell, which they’re going to do – being a Premier League team. There were parts of that we could have managed better and maybe lost a little bit of belief but we defended our box superbly and in the last 10 minutes we came into it again.
“We just didn’t quite have that moment but I’m so pleased with the performance and we should take nothing but credit and positives for what we’ve done today.
“We gave as good as we got. Luton are a really good team and I have a lot of respect for their manager. We will look forward to the next game and go again.”