Hatters boss felt a lack of a cutting edge cost his side victory at Magpies

Hatters boss Nathan Jones felt if his side had shown more of a cutting edge at Notts County on Saturday they could have left Meadow Lane with a precious away victory.
Jack Marriott shoots for goal at the weekendJack Marriott shoots for goal at the weekend
Jack Marriott shoots for goal at the weekend

The visitors enjoyed the better of the game in the first half, but despite some excellent approach play, only sent one shot on target for Magpies keeper Adam Collis to deal with, Alex Gilliead’s low effort from 15 yards easily saved.

Jack Marriott was inches wide from the edge of the box, with Danny Hylton unable to convert from close range on the stroke of half time, although Luton never really came close to scoring in the second period.

Jones said: “For 70 minutes we controlled the game, we weren’t really under pressure, we controlled the tempo of the game, moved the ball very well, got into real good areas had some real good interplay.

“It’s just a shame we didn’t have a tiny bit more cutting edge and put one of those chances away.

“Then, I felt we would have gone on and won the game because they would have had to come out a bit more, which suits us.

“We had some real good opportunities, counter-attacking football, a real threat had some good interplay in and around the edge of the box and we just needed someone to pull the trigger.

“Jack has had a great chance that he’s put just past the post and we’ve had a few of those opportunities.

“But the way we moved the ball and went about our business, we were brave coming here and, in the end, they’ve changed for us, late on and that was the only time we had any threat of conceding.

“It was a good away performance. These are a decent side, we’ve come here, we’ve been brave in our possession, brave in what we’ve done and I felt it was a decent away point.”

Jones made two changes to his side, bringing Johnny Mullins in for Dan Potts, with Alan Sheehan swapping to left back against his former side, while Hylton returned to partner Marriott once more too.

On the changes, Jones continued: “We knew that they’d have a direct threat, so we wanted to make sure that we were strong.

“Johnny’s a leader for us, we had three leaders in the back four, if you like, Sods (Stephen O’Donnell), is the younger one, but it was more to do with the fact we felt that they allowed space in between lines and Alan is one of the best passers we have to get it into our front people and cause problems.

“We didn’t do that enough, but that was the thinking. Dan Potts has done very well for us, but a week out won’t do him any harm.”

The Luton chief also opted to bring off Marriott late on, with Olly Lee on, as Town switched to a 4-2-3-1 in the closing stages, as the boss added: “We just felt we’d probably run out of steam a little bit with the diamond, we weren’t getting through the middle of them, so we just went around them.

“I thought that if we were going to carve them open we could have done it down the flanks with the quality we have wide, so it was a tactical change.

“It wasn’t a case of taking off a striker and, in the end, we knew it would be back and forth so we ended up putting (Isaac) Vassell on hoping we might nick something.”