Town striker Morris felt Blues loss was a 'bitter pill to swallow' for Luton

Luton striker Carlton Morris felt Saturday’s 3-2 defeat to Chelsea was a ‘bitter pill to swallow’ for his side.

The Hatters had gone into the match looking to secure a third successive Premier League win for the first time this term, with hopes high against a Blues side who had lost their last four matches away from Stamford Bridge. Those dreams were rocked though when Cole Palmer and Noni Madueke put Mauricio Pochettino’s side 2-0 in front by half time, Palmer making it 3-0 with 21 minutes to go after the home defence was sliced open.

However Luton, with Morris on by this time, mounted a terrific fightback, Ross Barkley heading Alfie Doughty’s corner home with 10 minutes left and then Elijah Adebayo adding a second late on to make it 3-2. Time just ran out in the end for the Hatters, leaving them with another defeat as they remain in the relegation zone at the turn of the year, with the forward, who also hit the bar himself, saying: “It is a bitter pill to swallow at the moment as we know the performances are there. With these big sides coming here we have lost the game, we are perfectionists, we’ll be working hard to make sure we can turn these good performances into results as well.”

With Chelsea clinical in the first 70 minutes, able to lead 3-0, and then just about doing enough defensively in the closing stages, it was the unsurprising difference in both areas that Morris knows need to be worked on. He continued: “At this level it’s just crucial to be so focused and so perfect when it comes to both boxes, defensively and attacking, they’re the fine details that we’re improving on. We’re much better now than at the start of the season, so you can see that we’re evolving as a side.

“It’s to be expected at this level. These teams spend so much money and have such high quality of players that you have to expect that teams are going to be clinical if they’re given the chance, so it’s our job to limit the chances as much as we can. I thought we did that quite well today to be honest, but they still managed to score three goals, although we showed a lot of character in getting two back ourselves.”

Despite the result, the fact that Luton pushed one of the top teams in the Premier League so close once more, as they have done in every match at Kenilworth Road this term, gave Morris real optimism they can win their battle to stay up.

He added: “That’s one thing, it does give you belief in the performances that we can do it here against the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal, City, Chelsea, teams like these. It gives us belief moving forward and that’s why we’ve found a bit of form recently I think.”