Hatters chief hails Brentford triumph as the best of his career

Luton chief Graeme Jones hailed last night’s brilliant 2-1 win over Brentford as the ‘best’ victory of his managerial career so far.

After being hammered 7-0 at Griffin Park earlier in the season, it was fair to say there was a certain amount of trepidation amongst home supporters about the prospect of facing the promotion-chasing Bees once more.

However, they saw their produce a magnificent defensive display, coupled with Shandon Baptiste’s own goal and a brilliant Martin Cranie strike, to seal a crucial triumph in their quest to stay up.

On where that ranked in his brief stint as a number one so far, Jones said: “For me, the best, because they’re a top team, right up there.

“I’ve looked at games this season and I remember analysing Fulham, Leicester and Leeds and you think, ‘this is another level here’.

“Analysing West Brom. Analysing Brentford is exactly the same feelings.

“I was analysing Brentford on the way home from Charlton on Saturday night because I knew we needed as much time as we could.

“The satisfaction with them carrying out that instruction, is so rewarding.”

When asked whether the players had extra motivation to win the clash after suffering such a humiliating 90 minutes in west London just a little under three months ago, Jones continued: “You'll have to ask them, I really don’t know.

"I made sure I reminded them of the feeling.

"I said before the game, 'remember when it was 10 men, remember when you're 5-0 down. Tonight we start 0-0 and its 11 v 11 so we have got an opportunity, we need to be ready to take it when it comes along.' We were, I'm totally satisfied.

With the Bees going into the game as the second top scorers in the Championship, possessing a front three on 43 goals between them, and Luton missing both Kazenga LuaLua and Izzy Brown, it had looked a tough, tough ask for Town.

Despite having just 31 per cent of the possession, they made it yet another superb night under the Kenilworth Road floodlights, with a fourth win from five home league midweek outings this term.

Jones continued: “They’ve (night games) certainly been good to us lately. The level of performance has been there for a long time now, but we had to win in a different way tonight.

“We couldn’t take Brentford on and try and beat them, we had probably too many injuries.

“Off the ball I thought we were absolutely outstanding, set-pieces were important, character of the players, energy and the players need to take all the credit.

"They were to a man, they were exceptional.

“Brentford are an outstanding football team, that was a high level game tonight in terms of off the ball, tactical performance from us.

“If anyone gets any time, have a look at the intelligence of our press, because they’ve spent millions, they’ve got top quality individuals.

“If they'd won tonight they’d have gone third in the league and we won the game with our character, our off the ball press and intelligence, set pieces and it was a different way of winning for us.

"I'd still prefer to take people on with certain players if they are fit, but we had to find a different way tonight and that was so satisfying.”