Skipper brandishes Luton's start at City as ‘unnacceptable’

Town fell behind inside five minutes, as they conceded first yet again in the Championship, as the Robins doubled their advantage just before half-time from the penalty spot.

Andreas Weimann scored their third in the second half, but the centre was frustrated with the opening strike, coming so early on in the contest.

He said: “It was disappointing, I’ve spoken about it before and I’m tired of saying it, but we have to speak about it because it is what happened again.

“How we have decided to start the game is not acceptable and in this division we can’t get away with it.

“We always set up to win and get after teams, but perhaps we might have to look at what we’re expecting from games. We might have to change the way we set up, who knows?

“We knew what was going to happen, the ball was going to go wide and it was going to come into our box.

“We worked on it, had a lot of meetings, we’ve gone through a lot and then for that to happen after three minutes.

"The ball comes into the box too easily, it’s a one-on-one header at the back stick and now all of a sudden we have allowed ourselves to get punched square in the face.”

With yesterday’s fixture the last of 2019, the captain is especially keen for Town to perform throughout the full 90 minutes, instead of periods during the game to succeed in the New Year.

The 28-year-old continued: “There’s been too many times where we have played well for 45 minutes and not so good for 45, or we’ve played well for 60 minutes and the other 30 we haven’t been at it.

“It is costing us and it’s killing us because this division is ruthless and if you switch off for five minutes you are going to get punished because there is real quality in this division.

“We need to find a way and we need to find a formula to start winning those 90-minute performances and getting the results that we need.”

Although Bradley admitted the team played better in the second half, he and his team-mates are well aware of the challenges ahead, specifically the next match at Millwall this afternoon.

He added: “We played better in the second half, but it was still 1-0 in the second half so plenty of work to do.

“It is a tough game coming up against Millwall so we have to improve and we have to do that quickly.

“It is one of the most difficult fixtures in the division, Millwall away.

“But it’s a challenge we will relish and I think when we have played and put in performances like this, we do seem to bounce back and perform well.

"So it’s a quick turnaround to get the boys fresh for Millwall.”