Hatters boss hopes Barnet shocker was a one-off

The visitors gave a display that was worlds apart from their efforts against Yeovil the previous weekend, falling to Jack Stephens’ excellent stoppage time winner.

A bemused Jones said: “We were just off it today and considerably off it, it’s a one-off we hope, because we’ve been at it in pre-season, so lets hope we can get that back.

“We were nowhere near the levels we were last week, absolutely nowhere near the levels.

“All credit to Barnet, they’re a very dangerous side in terms of counterattacking and they run, they work and they graft, and I didn’t think we were really at it today.

“We can’t have that, last year we drew too many games and conceded too many late errors, so we need to eradicate those.”

No Town player, barring Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu emerged from the game with a great deal of credit from the game either according to the boss, as he continued: “I don’t think anyone did, Pelly Ruddock showed a lot of endeavour in terms of his running and in possession, but apart from that we had no cutting edge or anything and that was a sad thing.

“That’s back down to earth with a real bump from last week.”

Although Dan Potts forced home keeper Jamie Stephens into a superb save from a corner in the first half, he was barely tested until tipping over Elliot Lee’s header.

Jones continued: “We had a few chances from set plays, which is not normally has massive strength of ours.

“We usually create a lot more, but we lacked a cutting edge, there was no fluency in our play and that sometimes happens.”

Defender Scott Cuthbert was forced to limp off after just 20 minutes, with Glen Rea on in his place and explaining the switch, Jones added: “He had a tight abductor yesterday, a tight glute and he did that.

“It was recurrence really, no problem yesterday but today it was.

“We went with Glen because he’s a little bit more up to speed, that’s the decision we made, but we’ve got a strong squad to be able to cope with that.”