Burnley boss Vincent Kompany relished the battle his side had to go through to take a step closer to the Sky Bet Championship title when winning 1-0 at play-off chasing Luton.
It had looked like the Clarets’ long run of scoring in consecutive games was going to be halted at 28 before referee Jeremy Simpson awarded a penalty for handball against Gabe Osho with 12 minutes left.
Ashley Barnes converted the spot-kick, and Kompany said: “It wasn’t going to be any other way and it was a good performance in that fashion.
“It was something we looked forward to as well. I don’t mind those types of games as I think those wins are massive.
“My image will probably be connected to the other side of the game a bit more, but if you knew me as a person you would know that I take a lot of pride in these wins, a lot of pleasure as well.
“If that’s what the game demands then that’s what we do.
“We’ve been at different grounds, we’ve played against physical sides all season, but this one is definitely extreme.
“It gives them a very clear identity and gives them something that can help them over-achieve and teams have felt the full force of it all season, so it’s a very special place to come and play.
“If you look at this game, it was demanding.
“After every long ball there’s a challenge, after every challenge there’s a second ball and another challenge.
“The pitch is tight, the quality of pitch – they won’t mind me saying – is not the same as some of the other grounds we’ve played at and this game demands a lot of focus and some nous and experience and in that sense it was a very, very good game.”
It was Luton who had the better first-half chances, although mainly from range, with Elijah Adebayo and Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu denied by visiting goalkeeper Aro Muric.
Johann Gudmondsson’s free-kick forced Town stopper Ethan Horvath into a good save, before Adebayo spurned the Hatters’ best chance, skying his close-range attempt.
After the break, Luton defended doggedly before finally being breached by the late penalty, as boss Rob Edwards said: “I’m so proud of the lads.
“After getting back about 4am on Thursday after a tough night at Preston, a quick turnaround and then going up against comfortably the best team in the league and putting on a performance like that, I’m so proud of the lads.
“It was a pen, I think we can deal with the initial free-kick better, but we learn from it and we’re human beings.
“There’s going to be one or two mistakes, there were very few out there today, the lads gave everything, ran so hard, fought so hard.
“We’re never going to turn up here today and give Burnley the game they want, they’re too good for that.
“They’re too good for us to sit off and say ‘go on, you have the ball’.
“We’ve got to go after them, we’ve got to make it difficult, we’ve got to make it really, really hard, we’ve got to suffocate them and I thought the lads were unbelievable with their energy.
“That’s why Burnley have scored so many late goals this season.
“I know it was a later one today but they do grind teams down.
“We didn’t allow them to do that, we asked the boys, they’ve got to give everything, they did it.
“We had some quality as well. I know it was a game of few chances, but the one big chance we had was a great bit of play.
“It wouldn’t happen often to them and I’m giving them lots of credit as I’ve got massive amounts of respect for them, but they had a free-kick and a penalty as their shots on target.
“So we limited a really top team to very few chances and we could have done better in the one big moment we had.”
