Bell felt Luton should have been 'out of sight' before conceding late on to draw at Preston

A frustrated Hatters defender Amari’i Bell felt his side should have been ‘out of sight’ by half time in their 1-1 draw at Preston North End last night.

The visitors dominated the majority of the opening period, Jordan Clark seeing his effort cleared off the line, Elijah Adebayo slamming a one-on-one chance wide, and then Bell himself blazing off target from inside the area.

After the break, home midfielder Ben Whiteman was sent off for a lunging challenge on Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu, with Adebayo fluffing another glorious opportunity when clean through, Carlton Morris hitting the underside of the bar from Clark’s corner.

Town’s leading scorer did give Rob Edwards’ side the lead on 72 minutes when his header from Bell’s left wing delivery crossed the line with 18 minutes to go.

However, rather than go on and seal what was looking like a comfortable victory, Luton then conceded a penalty as Troy Parrott’s blast struck the arm of Tom Lockyer, the Spurs loanee converting with real confidence from the spot, and they should have really won it, Everton youngster Tom Cannon going clean through only to drag inches wide.

Speaking afterwards, Bell said: “We’ve dominated, we’ve had a good few chances to score, we haven’t put them away.

"It was just one of those games where they’ve gone down to 10 men, we haven’t really controlled the game in the way we should have and we’ve let them in with a goal they shouldn’t have got.

"It’s disappointing, we feel like we’ve dropped a few points, but we can’t get too down as we’ve got a game in a few days, so we need to get ourselves ready for that.

“I definitely don’t think they deserved that (equaliser), you need to concentrate for 90 minutes, we haven’t in that incident and it’s cost us.

"We’ve got to take the positives and we need to work hard as we should have been out of sight by half time.

"We had a few chances, but it's one of those games, we’ve got to dust ourselves down and go again.”

Bell was one who missed a glorious chance in the first half as when picked out by Fred Onyedinma, in a moment reminiscent of his goal at Huddersfield on New Year’s Day, took aim on his right foot.

He made another similarly good connection, only for this time to see his attempt miss the target and not bulge the net as it had done at the John Smith’s Stadium.

On the opportunity, Bell continued: “The chance for myself I should have kept on target.

"I caught it nice, but I was a little bit off balance.

"I’ve got to anticipate it a bit better as I thought Carlton was going to shoot himself, but it’s a little bit behind him so he’s left it and it’s come at me fast and I’ve just put it off target.”

Team-mate Adebayo also wasted two glorious positions when one-on-one with keeper Freddie Woodman, as on how he was in the dressing room afterwards, Bell said: “I think he’s a little bit down as you would be as they’re two great chances which on another day he scores.

"But there’s no time to be down about it, we need to keep on going and a game on Saturday is a chance to put it right.”

Town have now scored just one goal in each of their last four league games, as although it has still led to a decent points haul of eight out of potential 12, Bell wants them to start finding the net with more regularity.

He added: “We need to be ruthless, as when we played Coventry we only scored one goal and we need to start scoring more goals.

"Also going back to the clean sheets that we were getting before, because clean sheets give you a good base to start from and helps you to win the game.”