Hatters defender Potts wants to get back to his scoring ways under Jones after netting Birmingham winner

Town defender Dan Potts is targeting a return to his days of being more of a regular on the scoresheet for the Hatters after netting a first goal in almost 18 months during Saturday’s 1-0 win at Birmingham City.

The 26-year-old now has now found the net 11 times in 166 appearances since arriving at Kenilworth Road back in the summer of 2015, signed by former boss John Still after his release from West Ham.

He wasn't on target during six games under Still, with a first goal coming once Jones had taken over, on his 43rd appearance for the club, the play-off semi final first leg at Blackpool in May 2017 that Luton lost 3-2.

The following season Potts managed seven in 45 outings, at one stage going on a run of four in five, although when in League One, he only managed one strike in 27 matches, often playing second fiddle to James Justin.

The goal was naturally when Jones was in charge, coming in the final minute of a 2-1 win at Oxford United, as with Mick Harford at the helm, he didn’t hit the target in his eight appearances.

Promoted to the Championship, Potts managed one goal in 34 appearances last term, that on October 23, 2019 at Fulham, the only time he scored in the 27 games he featured in with Graeme Jones in charge.

Potts then went 39 fixtures without scoring, but after notching the winner at St Andrew's, it means in total he has scored 10 goals in 125 games when Jones has been in the dug-out, compared to just one in 41 when he hasn’t.

The defender said: “A few of the lads have reminded me (of not scoring), but I've always backed myself in and around those sorts of chances, especially from set-pieces as we do enough work on them.

“You’ve got to expect the level of opposition goes up but with that the level of defending goes up, all aspects of the game.

"Set-pieces, they’re better at defending, offensively they’re better, so those sorts of chances are few and far between.

“You've got to make sure when they come you take them, but it’s definitely something I want to push on with now.”

On the goal itself, Potts was in the right place, completely unmarked when Harry Cornick's long throw was flicked on and turned goalwards by James Collins.

Blues keeper Neil Etheridge, as he had done at Kenilworth Road back in November, denied Collins from close range, but this time the rebound bounced up perfectly for Potts to nod into the net from virtually on the line.

He continued: “I had it all to do from one yard out.

"We work on set-pieces a lot in training, we’re strong in that aspect of the game and we’ve found out recently that Harry’s got a long throw, so why not utilise it?

"It didn’t work last week against Huddersfield, but luckily this week it’s come up trumps for us.

"I just drifted into that area and luckily the keeper's made a save and it’s dropped right to me and I just had to tap it in."

It was a case of redemption in Potts' own eyes from a miss during last weekend's 1-1 draw with Huddersfield when he headed against the post from close range.

The full back didn't make the same mistake this time though, and might have had a second, seeing another effort deflected over, as he added: "I should have scored last week against Huddersfield, that was annoying, but I made up for it this week and hopefully there’s a few more to come.

"We got on a lot of first contacts from set-pieces, we looked strong and to be fair the irony is yesterday we did our homework and we expected Birmingham to be strong from set-pieces.

"It was more of a focus on dealing with their set-pieces, but I thought we were the better side when it came to that side of the game.

"We could have got a couple more, I could have got a couple more for sure.”