Jones admits Luton got lucky at Rochdale

Luton boss Nathan Jones admitted his side got lucky for the first time this season as they held Rochdale to a goalless draw at Spotland this afternoon.
Hatters boss Nathan JonesHatters boss Nathan Jones
Hatters boss Nathan Jones

Town were under the cosh for long periods, thankful to a brilliant display from goalkeeper James Shea in the first half as they kept out their opponents, who also struck the bar late on through Zach Clough.

Speaking afterwards, Jones, who saw Danny Hylton dismissed with 16 minutes to go, said: "Probably for the first time for long, long, long, long time, we’ve got something we probably didn’t really deserve if I’m honest.

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"But we stuck at it, we had to change shape, we showed great resilience, a clean sheet away from home and we had to ride our luck a little bit.

“If you get what you deserve in football then we’d have beaten Blackpool and we’d have beaten Doncaster and we’d have five more points, and then I’d have accepted defeat here quite comfortable.

"So we got what we didn’t deserve to be honest with you, but that’s a good point as these are a good football side.

"They cause you problems, if you allow them to do it and we allowed them to do it today and that’s the biggest thing for me.

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"We allowed Rochdale too much respect and that was the sad, thing but we got a point and these points are important as they keep you in fifth place, so it’s a decent point all in all.

“We've had a few good chances and if it was a tight game, on another day we’d have been saying we could have nicked it, but they’ve had better chances than us today.

"They were a little bit braver, especially first 30 minutes, until we changed it, then the game seem to settle down and late on they’ve just bombarded the box, but we can deal with that all day long, so it wasn’t really a problem.

"Sheasy’s had a good game, the first time for a long time our goalkeeper's kept us in it, so we'll accept the point today and put that one to bed and think we’ve got to be better, but we're reasonably happy with a point.

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“Their fans said to me, 'you were lucky today.' I know and we’ll accept it, but trust me, we've gone to grounds all over the place and annihilated teams and ripped sides apart and not got what we deserved.

"So if we have had a stroke of luck today then I'll praise the lord and I thank him we had it."