Jones: 'Something has to change' as Luton fail to score on the road yet again

Luton boss Nathan Jones admitted ‘something has to change’ after his side drew yet another blank on the road in the Championship on Saturday, going down 1-0 to Blackburn Rovers.

The Hatters’ failure to find the net at Ewood Park means they have scored just six goals away from Kenilworth Road this term, the joint lowest in the second tier with Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest.

Since a 1-1 draw with Huddersfield on November 7, Town have managed just two goals in their last eight trips, while no Luton striker has found the net since James Collins at Rotherham three days earlier, one of only two goals a recognised forward has scored this season, Collins also with the other on the opening day at Barnsley.

Looking back at the season, the Hatters have managed 103 shots in their 14 matches on the road, with just 28 on target, at an average of two per game, while a further glance at the stats show they are also averaging a goal every 210 minutes, or three and a half hours of football.

There was another perfect example of Town's profligacy in front of goal at the weekend, when Harry Cornick, on his 150th appearance, was found in the box with a great opportunity to break the deadlock late in the contest.

Whether his miss at Chelsea was still on his mind, or it was a lack of confidence at not finding the net so far this season, rather then pull the trigger, he opted to try and find a better placed team-mate, with the chance going begging, Rovers taking full advantage with an 85th minute winner.

Jones, who has Danny Hylton and Sam Nombe available to him, both yet to score in 20 appearances, although they have been largely from the bench, now has until 11pm this evening to try and boost his striking options for the remainder of the campaign, ahead of the transfer window closing.

On the lack of goals, he said: “Whether it’s belief or whatever, but we do these things every single week in training.

"We work religiously on our final third, we do the same work as we did at League One level, at League Two level, in terms of the structure, in terms of when we get in these areas, this is what we do.

"It might be belief, it might be technique, it’s something, but a lot of things have to happen as he’s put some great balls in Harry, there’s no-one there back centre of the goal to finish.

"We work on these things, so something has to change.

"Even though I’m delighted with the overall performance, I’m disappointed with the goal, I’ll look at it and we’ll speak to our frontmen, we’ll speak to our attacking players because there’s ways we can be more clinical there.

"To be fair to Blackburn, the one bit of quality needed in the game, they’ve took it and they’ve won the game.

"This is a league of margins, fine, fine margins, and they came out on top today.”

With 15 goals at home, Town have scored 21 this season from their 26 games, but even though it is 11 less than the same stage last term, Luton are 12 points better off, after losing six games more under previous boss Graeme Jones.

Jones insists that his players need a little bit more faith in their own ability to make even more of an impression in the division, adding: "If we want to be a force at Championship level, as we’re not far off these teams, we’re not far off Brentford and people like that, it’s just they have real, real quality, more than us, because they’ve got massive budgets.

"Structurally and how we go about our work, we’re actually a decent side, but I’m not sure that they believe it yet.

"As you’ve got to go for 90 minutes, you have to take your chances, you have to defend well, you have to be clinical and you have to see out games, but there's no difference.

"We've had three away games now, against Bournemouth, against Brentford and against these and we shouldn’t have lost any one of them.

"We beat Bournemouth and should have definitely got something from Brentford and today we should have got something from here.

"But shoulda woulda coulda doesn’t win you points, so performance levels are there, but we’ve just got to learn from this and learn quickly."