Town chief knows Luton's form on the road must pick up ahead of away run

Dan Potts saw this shot fly well over during Tuesday night's 2-0 defeat to QPR

Luton boss Nathan Jones knows full well his side face a huge challenge to arrest their worrying away form over the next few weeks.

The Hatters had started the campaign with an impressive record on their travels since Jones returned as manager, carrying on last season’s impressive end to the campaign where they went four unbeaten, by winning 1-0 at Barnsley.

They then won two from their next four, but since a 1-0 triumph at Rotherham on November 4, have failed to win any of their last six matches, with four defeats, taking just two points from a possible 18.

They had failed to score in over eight hours as well until Kazenga LuaLua's late strike at Reading on Boxing Day.

Rectifying their shortcomings won’t be easy by any means though with Luton heading to third-placed Bournemouth this afternoon and then heading to another promotion contender in Brentford on Wednesday night.

In fact Town's next four matches are away Kenilworth Road, as they go to Chelsea in the FA Cup and then visit Blackburn Rovers in the league too, while it adds up to six from eight outside of Bedfordshire if you factor in trips to Birmingham City and Stoke City as well.

When asked how important it is to get better on the road, Jones said: “We need to because that was the polar opposite of post-lockdown.

"If we can get those levels of performances back, we play slightly different now so maybe certain things have to be tweaked.

"Performances have been decent but it is about getting through a period now where we do pick up points because we want to keep moving forward.”

Looking at today’s game against a Cherries side who, armed with a Premier League squad, are one of the hot favourites to go straight back up.

They have the best goalscoring record on home soil in the division as well with 21 strikes already registered, former Liverpool forward Dominic Solanke into double figures too.

Jones continued: “Bournemouth are a fantastic side, they are a Premier League side, a Premier League squad, Premier League everything.

"It will be a real tough game and we’ve got a real tough run of fixtures now and we need to make sure we are right at it.

"This is the level we want to be at, Bournemouth, Brentford, Premier League quality, Premier League aspirations, then we play Chelsea, who are a Champions League team, all away.

"You couldn’t think of a tougher run of fixtures to come up but we’re going to relish that because that is what we want.

"Without being disrespectful to anyone, we would prefer to be doing that than going to Cheltenham, Scunthorpe and Walsall, with the greatest of respect.”

Luton head into the game on the back of their poorest home display of the season, beaten 2-0 by QPR on Tuesday night.

Jones knows that the players didn’t need telling twice the level of their performance was nowhere near good enough either, adding: "There’s an honest group here so they know the standards fell, but again, there’s a lot of things you have to consider.

"We’d been without a game for 10 days, lacked a bit of rhythm maybe.

"We started well and let's give QPR credit, QPR needed a result, they brought in someone that gave them real impetus (Charlie Austin), had to pay a lot of money for that and sometimes that can happen.

"I’m disappointed with our level of performance, but that hasn’t been the general, level of performance.

"If that continues then I’d be slightly more concerned, I'm just disappointed as I felt it was a real good opportunity and having to cancel the game last time hindered us.

"But it's not our usual performance, so providing that doesn't become a regular occurrence, we move on from it.”