Lockyer urges Luton team-mates to use the hurt suffered during painful defeat at Watford to start another unbeaten run

Luton defender Tom Lockyer has urged his team-mates to harness the pain they suffered during Sunday’s humbling 4-0 thrashing at Watford to go on another unbeaten run starting against Sunderland this weekend.

The Hatters saw their seven match unbeaten sequence left in tatters after a thoroughly miserable first trip to Vicarage Road with fans present since 2006, thumped 4-0 by their fierce rivals in what was an embarrassing 90 minutes for the players and supporters present.

However, having beaten QPR and Norwich City in the build-up, the result saw Luton’s position in the table far from disastrous, sitting in ninth place, just two points away from the play-offs.

The Hatters now face five matches before the season breaks for the World Cup in Qatar, three at home and two away, starting with the visit of the Black Cats on Saturday, while they also host Reading on Tuesday night.

Lockyer said: “If you said to the fans what game do you want us to end our streak on, this would be bottom of the pile, so it’s hugely frustrating.

"But if we can use this as a bit of hurt to go on another run then that would be fantastic.

"We’ve been on a great run and if you take a look at the bigger picture then hopefully the fans can get behind us again and we can go another run.

“Lets be real about it, the run we’ve had and the run we’ve been on, there’s been some really tough games in there, so to get some of the results that we have got is obviously fantastic.

"There’s no easy games here, but the points return we’ve got has been really good for the games we’ve had.

"We’ve got a couple of home games now, so try and turn the Kenny back to a fortress and go on another run.”

The Welsh international knew that conceding so early on at the weekend, Keinan Davis opening the scoring after just three minutes, was always going to make it a far more difficult encounter, as it proved.

He continued: “If you’d have said how do you want the game to go, it would probably be the last thing you want.

"It wasn’t in our gameplan and then just before half time we concede another one which was sloppy as well, so it really hurts, it’s really frustrating.

“If you look at the game, they were a bit more clinical than us in both boxes.

"We had a few half chances, but the chances they had, they were getting end products from them.

"Going 1-0 down early on, it’s going to be hard and it’s going to be an uphill battle, but to lose 4-0 in a big derby for our fans, that’s definitely not what we had in mind.

“We just want to let the fans know that it hurts us just as much as them and we can only apologise for that.”

Luton weren’t without their chances on the day though, Allan Campell firing narrowly wide and Elijah Adebayo’s header landing on the roof of the net.

Just after the break, they had their best opportunity too when Lockyer himself looked destined to score from James Bree’s corner, only to fail to connect from a matter of yards, the ball hitting Gabe Osho and bouncing over.

On his miss, the defender said: “Breesy whips in a great corner, I’ve seen it all the way, I’ve got a free goal to just go and head it in and the geezer pulls me.

"I haven’t seen it back so I can’t say too much on it, but it feels like I was going to score a goal until I got a little whatever.

"It could be good defending, I don’t know, if that goes in that’s massive.”

Just when it looked like the Hatters might be able to force their way back into the contest, they were hit by the killer blow when keeper Ethan Horvath’s clearance went straight to Watford midfielder Joao Pedro, who made no mistake in slamming home the third.

Lockyer added: “I’m not going to dig Eth out, he’s been fantastic all season.

"He likes to play out and he’s got that one wrong, but no-one’s blaming him.

"He’s been fantastic this year, we’re going to need him and even at the end he was making saves for us, especially when we were down to 10 men and it was a bit harder.”