Hatters boss frustrated as defensive lapses cost Town dearly during Potters defeat

Luton boss Nathan Jones was annoyed by his side’s defensive lapses as they fell to a 2-0 defeat against Stoke City at Kenilworth Road yesterday.

After an excellent first half in which Town dominated, going close through Elliot Lee and Rhys Norrington-Davies, they then found themselves 1-0 just 60 seconds after the break, Steven Fletcher escaping Matty Pearson’s attentions to head home Tyrese Campbell’s cross.

Within 10 minutes the Potters had taken what proved to be an unassailable 2-0 lead, Hatters unable to clear their lines from a corner and Nick Powell slamming past Simon Sluga.

Jones said: “That’s Championship football. The frustrating thing for me is, it’s not like we don’t know what their threats are.

“For the majority of the game, I thought we were excellent.

“In the first half, I thought we controlled the game superbly well and we looked a proper side.

“We lacked a little bit of cutting edge right in the final third, but apart from that I thought we dominated the game.

“We came out straight after half time and wanted to start well.

"We said about it and then, to concede within a minute and a half, kills you.

“It’s not like it’s come from an unbelievable source, Steven Fletcher’s been doing that for 80 years, near enough, so, that’s the real frustrating thing for us.

“Then we don’t compose ourselves, we lose headers and, to be fair they’re a big side, so we knew we were going to be stretched defensively.

“But we didn’t have any aggression, we didn’t react well enough and, from a real positive performance - we controlled possession, shots, shots on target, everything - we should’ve got more out of the game but we didn’t because lapses have cost us.”

Town had by the better of proceedings throughout the 90 minutes, with 18 shots, seven on target, compared to eight from the visitors, three on target, scoring with two of them.

However, they couldn't score with any of them, Davies saving well from Harry Cornick and Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu as Luton lost for the first time at home in the league this season.

Jones added: "It’s just that little bit of quality at times, some teams have got top end quality and can hurt you.

"We know that we’re structurally good and we need to be like that, but we got in great areas, some great play, caused them problems and the goal changed the game.

"They were able to relax a little bit more and then not that they played any better, but we had to change a few things and once you’re chasing the game, we changed the game to stuff we don’t work on as it’s the right thing to do to get a bit of penetration, whereas as it was, we were in control of the game, we really were.

“It’s very hard in the Championship to come back and this is what we haven’t been doing, but in all honesty, we've not conceded many chances, only late on when we’re chasing the game a little bit.

“It’s just disappointing from how good we were first half and in control of the game, to lose it 2-0, you're thinking ‘how has that happened?’

“Especially when statistically we've had a fantastic game, but we haven't scored, they have and that's cost us the game.”