George Moncur opened the scoring with a fantastic strike, before Norwich hit back almost immediately from the penalty spot. Matty Pearson put the Hatters ahead once more and James Collins added a third from 12-yards in the second period.

Reflecting pitch side after the game, Nathan started by saying: “Delighted! It was brilliant to see fans here tonight and they did help. There were times when they had a little bit of possession, they got behind the team and it did prove a massive help but I thought we were excellent from start to finish, I really did.

“I felt we thoroughly deserved it. They had a lot of possession. We knew that because they are the best side in the league, they are top of the league, but we knew we had to be disciplined, press at the right time and I thought we did all of those. We were aggressive, I thought we were a threat as well and we might have got a few more as well.

“They are a massive help but they were hurt by the weekend. We were miles off anywhere where we needed to be on Saturday but what a great way to come back. Yes, they might have subconsciously gone out there and thought ‘there is fans here tonight, we will have to lift it’ but from start to finish, they were excellent.

“That is the group I know, it was one of those things. Circumstance, Cardiff needed the win, they were aggressive, they came out and it was a third game of the week. All those things added up but tonight was more us and I thought we were excellent. The fans were brilliant. They gave us a good little ovation at the end but I think they were delighted for us.

“I was proud of that because a lot of stuff can be said, and so on. Bridges have been built and this is how we move forward. We need everyone to move forward and the fans play a huge part. Imagine if there was 10,000 in here!"

He added: “That is as good a performance as I’ve had as a Luton manager. Probably the worst one on Saturday and this is probably the best one, because we’ve scored eights and sevens here, but this was against a Premier League team because they will probably go up.”