Luton boss wants his side to replicate their performance levels from Swansea defeat against Coventry

Town chief knows goals are the only thing missing for the Hatters
Town boss Nathan JonesTown boss Nathan Jones
Town boss Nathan Jones

Hatters boss Nathan Jones wants his side to replicate their level of performance from the weekend’s 1-0 defeat to Swansea against Coventry City this evening, while also adding a finishing touch to proceedings.

The Luton chief saw his side dominate large chunks of their clash with the promotion-contenders at Kenilworth Road, so much so that visiting keeper Freddie Woodman was booked with almost half an hour to go for time-wasting.

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Town created a number of chances to have come away with victory themselves, only to fluff their lines in front of goal, a theme that has run throughout the season, but despite that, Jones was rightly pleased with what he had seen on display.

Speaking about the Sky Blues clash, which starts at 7pm, he said: “It’s a chance to continue that level of performance and if we have that level of performance for another 11 games then we’ll pick up more points than we won’t.

“I’m very happy with the level of performance, it’s just we didn’t quite get the goal, but it gives us a chance to put that right.

“It also gives us another chance to win a football game as that’s what we need to do.

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“It’s definitely something to build on and that’s what we have to make sure we do, that we take the positives from it, but improve on those things that we can and the clinical edge is all that we lacked today.

“We haven’t got a Teemu Pukki who's going to score 25, we can't spend 10, 12 million on Ivan Toney, we can’t go and sign Adam Armstrong for 14,15 million quid, we can’t do that, so we have to find them.

“We’ve had chances, against Birmingham, when we were dominant, we’ve had opportunities, we should be out of sight.

"Nottingham Forest here, we’re comfortable, so we are developing at the level, we’ll get there.

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"It’s just we know that we lack real, real top end quality and that’s not being disrespectful, because it is, from where we’ve come from, but we’re trying to bridge that gap week in week out.

“We’ve lost two on the bounce now against the top two, so no shame in that, but today we shouldn’t so we want to put that right.

“We’ve just got to make sure that they see the positives in the performance and not just see the fact they’ve lost a football match as we deserved so much more.”

The Sky Blues are in their first season back in the Championship since the 2011-12 campaign, with manager Mark Robins, in the post for over four years now, after a spell in charge during 2012-13, having overseen City's climb up the leagues from the fourth tier.

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They go into the game sitting fifth bottom following a vital 1-0 win over Derby County in their last outing, which lifted them six points clear of the drop zone.

Robins' side have struggled on the road though, recording just two victories, their last coming in early January, as Jones continued: “They’re on a similar journey to us and Mark Robins has done a wonderful job there.

"They’re probably consolidating or trying to establish themselves now as a Championship aide and they've got a good side, got good players, got a good system, so it will be a tough, tough game, as every game in the Championship is.”

When Luton were being beaten by Swansea, Coventry had a weekend off as their match against Rotherham United was called off due to the Millers players contracting coronavirus.

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It means the visitors approach the match having not played in 10 days, but Jones didn’t think the added rest would go in their favour, especially with Town’s game against Rotherham, meant to have taken place last Tuesday, also being cancelled.

He added: “Not really as we’ve had a number of days now, we’ve had a full week.

"The Preston game (on Saturday) would probably be the one where fatigue would set in a little bit more, I don’t think Tuesday would.

"It doesn’t matter, it’s just these are the days we live in and it’s very unfortunate that we’ve had games called off as they’ve hindered us.

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"The QPR game, we were in great form and then we had the QPR game delayed. we didn’t quite put in a performance.

"The Rotherham one is our game in hand, we wanted to do that as we could have gone tenth, which is a wonderful position to be in.

"We have to wait to get those points, so that's the frustrating thing.