Jones bemoans the manner of Luton's late defeat to Wigan as errors cost Town dearly

Hatters boss Nathan Jones was left hugely frustrated by the manner of Saturday’s 2-1 defeat against Wigan Athletic.

With Town leading 1-0 through Carlton Morris’s third goal in as many games in the first half, the hosts appeared well set to claim a first win in front of their own fans this season, as they held on to that advantage deep into the second period.

However, a succession of errors led to the Latics restoring parity with 10 to play, Amari’i Bell’s clearance being kept in by Ryan Nyambe, and with Allan Campbell unable to make a telling intervention, Callum Lang’s cross-shot hit Tom Lockyer to beat Ethan Hovath.

Then to make matters worse, as Jones made the fourth and fifth of his allotted substitutions to bring on Luke Berry and Fred Onyedinma in a bid to push for victory, Luton were caught out throwing too many men forward, Thelo Aasgaard expertly finishing off a Latics counter with two minutes left as the visitors somehow left with all three points.

Speaking afterwards, Jones hadn’t ever thought defeat was possible with the way the game was going, as he said: “Not really as we can see out games.

“Amari’i clears that, Amari’ kicks that out for a throw, they don’t score, and then we don’t have to chase it as we want to win the game.

“It’s moments like that that happen.

"We have to do the basics right, then he got done, we have a chance to clear it we don’t and then the shot across deflects and goes in.

“There’s a lot of errors in that to score a goal, they haven’t had to work too hard for it, it’s just been us being inept really.

“Then we were pushing so we were always going to be kind of susceptible, but we put Gabe (Osho) in there and said ‘just defend, make sure we are not open to the counter attack.’

“But as soon as we turn the ball over, we charge out, and then they run harder than us and that doesn’t happen often.

“We were pretty dominant in terms of our play I can't remember Ethan having anything to do for masses periods of the games and then they've scored two in the last 10 minutes which is really, really frustrating.

"We’ve lacked discipline, we've gone ragged and that’s something I need to look at as well.

“So it’s really disappointing and the manner of it is disappointing, everything about it is disappointing.

"Because it’s a game at home where we like to fancy ourselves at home, but it's our away form at the minute keeping us afloat at the moment.”

Town thought they had levelled in stoppage time when James Bree’s free kick was turned over the line by a combination of Cameron Jerome and Tom Lockyer, only for experienced striker to be flagged offside.

Jones continued: “It’s really close as Cameron Jerome goes up for it, misses it, but they say he’s in an offside position.

"It’s really, really close, you have to have VAR, have to have Premier League angles to say it’s not conclusive either way.

"The linesman’s given it and we have to accept that, referee and linesman, no blame on them today.

"We categorically should have beaten Sheffield United here as they shouldn’t have had their goal, Cardiff, some decisions there were really puzzling, but it’s one of those things.”

Jerome was also involved in another big call by an incredibly lenient referee Chris Kavanagh as he didn’t give the substitute a penalty after he had robbed Curtis Tilt in the box and then gone down under the defender’s challenge.

It was one of two spotkick incidents in the second period that were waved away, Wigan’s Graeme Shinnie somehow not being awarded one afterwards, when his legs were clearly taken away by Bell, as Latics boss Leam Richardson confirmed afterwards the official had apologised to him over the wrong call.

That wasn’t the case for Jones, who when asked if he had been approached by Kavanagh, added: “No, but they make mistakes all the time.

"I haven't looked at ours yet, but they might have made a mistake with ours, might have made a mistake with the offside goal late on, but that’s fine, they’ve won the game.

“Both sides have had shouts for a penalty, I think it evens itself up.

"The referee had a good game for a change here, we had enough of the game not to have lost it, so we’re disappointed.

"Credit to Wigan, they kept going and have nicked an away win, but we’ve had enough of the game not to have lost it.”