Jones relieved as Town pick up Rovers victory

Hatters boss Nathan Jones was a relieved man to come away with all three points after their 2-0 win at Forest Green Rovers last weekend.
Hatters boss Nathan Jones watches on at Forest GreenHatters boss Nathan Jones watches on at Forest Green
Hatters boss Nathan Jones watches on at Forest Green

The Luton chief hadn’t been overly happy with how his side started the game and felt the struggling hosts could well have taken the lead in the early stages.

However, Town hit back, scoring at just the right time, with Alan Sheehan netting from a cleverly-worked set-piece routine on the stroke of half time, before having the better of the second period even though Jack Stacey was sent off on the hour mark.

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Despite the numerical disadvantage, Danny Hylton tapped in a second just eight minutes later to seal victory, as Jones said: “I am delighted with the result and especially after going down to 10 men.

“If I am honest I didn’t think we were anywhere our best, as Forest Green started off really well.

“It was poor play from us. I thought we were poor in terms of our defensive responsibilities early on and they could have taken the lead.

“Second half they had one real good chance – (Christian) Doidge, he normally scores them to be fair.

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“So we got slightly fortunate in those instances, but in terms of the goals we scored, we are delighted with both goals.

“We weren’t at our best, but sometimes you’ve got to come away and these are a difficult side to play against, because they’re very, very expansive, they take massive, massive chances.

“With taking massive chances and risks, sometimes it takes patience, sometimes it takes us not to have an ego about certain things and that’s what it was and I am delighted.

“We showed a real resilience late on because I thought we saw the game out fantastically well.”

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Although Forest Green dropped to the bottom of the table after the result, Jones knew they were in for a real battle throughout to retain top spot.

He added: “These are a real difficult side to play against as they really cause you problems.

“We knew it would be a difficult one, on paper it wasn’t going to be because of the league positions, but they really cause teams problems with their structure and how they do stuff.

“We’ve really had to defend well, dig in.

“I’m delighted though as it extends our lead at the top, extends our lead to fourth, extends our goal difference, so it’s very good.”

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The result saw Town increase their lead at the summit to two points, moving eight clear of fourth-placed Wycombe in the process.

Jones added: “All we want to do is concentrate on ourselves, try and keep winning football matches and then whatever others do, they do.

“We can’t affect that, all we can do is affect the ones that we play against and last week was a real important point against Notts County as it kept us at the top and kept us in good form.

“Then today we were nowhere near our best, but we showed that we can grind out a result. No-one will remember this performance at the end of the season, but hopefully people will remember the three points.”