Jones left with a tinge of disappointment as Town lose to Newcastle

Hatters boss Nathan Jones was left with a feeling of disappointment with the manner in which his side went out of the FA Cup with a 3-1 defeat at Newcastle United this afternoon.
Hatters boss Nathan JonesHatters boss Nathan Jones
Hatters boss Nathan Jones

Town had held their Premier League opponents for the opening half hour, until conceding three goals inside nine minutes, with Ayoze Perez netting twice and then Jonjo Shelvey making it 3-0.

The visitors then hit back in the second period, with Danny Hylton pulling one back early on, while he had another goal wrongly disallowed, with Elliot Lee hitting the bar as well.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Jones said: "I'm very proud of the second half performance, but the overall feeling I’ve got is disappointment really, because for 25, 26 minutes, we didn’t really have much of a problem.

"We were handling them, it was a really even game, they’re a good side and they moved the ball well.

"We we defended very, very well and had some moments ourselves, when a little bit more quality and we might have punished them.

"But when you make three errors and you go 3-0 down against a Premier League side as a League Two side, that’s some mountain to climb and it was.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"The first goal absolutely out of nothing, no problem, big error and then we’re in possession and we give the ball away twice, JJ (James Justin) overhits it to Pelly, bang they’re in and they score and then Pelly gives it away, and that’s the margin when you come up against these big sides.

"If you give away the ball in dangerous areas, and we worked on that all week, as we know that’s what their strength is, a counter attacking strength.

"They sit back in and then they punished us first half, and then it was about making sure that one, we got the next goal and two, we didn’t concede and then the floodgates opened.

“Second half, I thought we were much, much better, on the front foot, scored early, scored another goal that wasn’t offside, so that's the big frustration, because at 3-2 who knows?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“There's an overall tinge of disappointment, but I’m proud of how they went about their work as the gulf in class is there because it’s Premier League against League Two, but at times, you couldn’t really see that."