Luton boss is left feeling 'physically sick' after Rovers score late on to clinch victory

Luton boss Nathan Jones admitted he was left feeling ‘physically sick’ after falling to a 1-0 defeat at Blackburn Rovers this afternoon.

With five minutes to go, the Hatters looked on course for another point in their Championship campaign, before Dan Potts went down after a cross hammered into his midriff from close range.

Referee Jeremy Simpson stopped play and gave a drop ball, which was quickly pumped into the area by Lewis Holtby where Sam Gallagher nodded down for Adam Armstrong to score, with Town's players bemoaning they hadn't been given a warning play would restart by the official.

Jones himself was left bitterly disappointed with the architect of the winner, as he said: "We probably should be talking about a real good away performance but I’m not as for 10 seconds we switched off and that's cost us the game and that's the thing that makes me feel actually physically sick if I’m honest.

“It’s a drop ball, all my players are standing around and the thing that really, really kills me is, we actually said at half time, sooner or later when they get frustrated, they’re going to bring Gallagher on as they’ve done it in two games previously.

“Now we haven’t lost against these yet, but they bring him on, they go direct, he heads it in, he heads it back across and they score.

“They’ve done it twice against it, so I said 'that doesn't happen to us today.'

"It's like a self fulfilling prophecy, and I can’t believe it's happened because that's the thing that costs us at Championship level.

“I actually said to them at half time, 'they are going to go direct later on in the game, because they will not be able to find a way through us so they'll bring Gallagher on.'

“Make sure that when he peels away that he's marked as he’ll nod it back in and they'll score, because they've done it twice and I don't want that to happen again.

“I don’t know how much more information I could have given them and that’s the only time we switched off in 90 minutes.”

Jones didn’t lay the blame at the officials either though, saying: “It’s inexcusable, they go to cross the ball, ours goes down, so he brings the ball back, 25 yards further back away from our goal.

"He drops it, I've got my right back and my right winger actually chatting, when he's peeled into an area and that for me is baffling, that's what makes me sick, as we shouldn't have lost that game today.

“I should be giving a totally different interview here, in terms of how proud I was, for us to compete with Blackburn and to nullify a real good fluent Blackburn side.

“A lot of them are earning rave reviews, we nullified them today, I thought we were excellent, but I can't actually say that as we've just lost the game.

“I wouldn’t say robbed, because it was an even game, we’ve been the victims of our own downfall, so I'm not going to say robbed as that would be disrespectful to Blackburn.

"It was an even game, but to come here away from home and to compete, the fine margins has gone with them today.

“Two minutes earlier we have a glorious opportunity, didn't take it, then we switched totally off and get punished.”

Town then thought they had equalised through Harry Cornick’s effort into the top corner, but it was disallowed for offside in the build-up to the goal, which saw Sonny Bradley meet Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall's free kicked, his attempt cleared off the line, before Cornick struck.

Jones added: “I’m not really sure about the offside rule anymore.

"There’s a phase of play in there, the ball’s gone backwards, there's a phase of play first of all, earlier on in the move, I don't know, I really don't know.

"I haven't actually seen it back yet and I haven't gone to see the referee, but I shouldn't be talking about that really."