Jones blasts 'passive' first half display as Hatters are no match for Millwall

Luton boss Nathan Jones blasted his side’s first half display during their 1-0 defeat at Millwall this evening.

The Town chief saw his side on the back foot from the opening moments, as they never got going, with the only surprise was it took their hosts until the last minute of stoppage time to open the scoring, Martin Cranie diverting Matt Smith's header into his own net.

Although the Hatters improved marginally in the second period, they were undone again with 12 minutes to go, Connor Mahoney's angled drive beating Simon Sluga.

Jones said: "First half, I thought we were pretty passive, we got out-muscled, we know we can’t come here and have a fight with Millwall as they’re probably better than you at doing that..

"We need to really be aggressive and to play, to move the ball quickly, but we didn’t

"Any time they pressed us, we went into front and their two centre halves ate it up.

"Then they put the ball in the box, ultimately they did it that much first half that eventually were cracked, so I'm really disappointed with the first half.

"Second was much better, we controlled the game, they scored against the run of play, but we never looked like scoring.

"We had a lot of possession, moved the ball well, but lacked penetration.

"We are missing four or five players, which would have given us a bit more impetus tonight, but we didn't really look like we were going to score and didn't look like we were going to get anything from the game.”