An own goal from Shandon Baptiste and a fantastic strike from Martin Cranie earned the Town all three points, despite Ollie Watkins scoring a consolation late on.

The result takes the Hatters off the bottom of the table and to within four points of safety, and the manager was unsurprisingly delighted with how the team played.

The 49-year-old said: “I think the level of performance has been there for a long time now, but we had to win in a different way tonight. We couldn’t take Brentford on and try and beat them with probably too many injuries.

"Off the ball I thought we were absolutely outstanding. Set pieces were important and the character of the players, the energy - the players need to take all the credit. They were to a man, exceptional.

“There’s a long way to go when you score early against Brentford! Brentford are an outstanding football team. That was a higher level game tonight in terms of performance. If anyone gets anytime to have a look at the intelligence of our press - they’ve spent millions, they’ve got top quality individuals, and if they won tonight, they would have gone third in the league.

"We won the game with our character, our off the ball press and intelligence, our set pieces, and it was a different way of winning for us. I prefer to take people on with certain players if they were fit, and we had to find a different way tonight. It was so satisfying."

The Hatters are in the middle of another three-match week, and looking ahead to Stoke at home on Saturday, he added: "I think it’s always the third game that is the concern because obviously you accumulate fatigue as the week goes on.

"The good thing for us now is that we’ve got three days recovery, so we will have to use that wisely. I made one change because Martin has been getting there physically, I knew his experience would be vital tonight.

"He is a fantastic decision maker on the pitch. Benrahma’s a winger and all of a sudden, he is a number ten and Glen had to take him and deal with Rico Henry coming forward.

"I thought Martin was excellent. I'm just hoping I’m in a position where we can have players fit for the weekend and assess where we are physically and tactically, make sure we give the same level tonight.”