'Flexible' Hatters impress boss Jones

Luton’s flexibility on their way to making it three wins in a week was a huge bonus for Town chief Graeme Jones.
Hatters boss Graeme JonesHatters boss Graeme Jones
Hatters boss Graeme Jones

The Hatters boss saw his side defeat Huddersfield Town 2-1 at Kenilworth Road on Saturday, following up successes at Barnsley and then Cardiff in the Carabao Cup.

They did so with just 42 per cent possession, after dominating in Wales the previous Tuesday, having 69 per cent of the ball against Neil Warnock’s side.

That all came after a counter-attacking performance at Oakwell as Luton won for the first time in the Championship, as Jones said: “I watched Huddersfield against Reading on the way home from Cardiff on Tuesday night, they did their homework on us as well, because they obviously saw our threat last weekend.

“They changed their game style, played in a different way, it was quite tactical and I was just delighted that we came out on top. We didn’t get it perfect, first half, it wasn’t quite how we thought it would go.

“Football’s like that and that’s why I keep talking about being flexible and being adaptable and I thought we were.

“I don’t know about possession, as I’ve said we can play on the counter and we can play with possession.

“The satisfying thing or me is we’ve won all three games in completely different fashions.

“You do that, you’ve got half a chance, but I don’t want to get carried away.”

Midfielder Andrew Shinnie agreed with his manager that the team had adapted to life in the second tier of English football.

He said: "We really wanted to win this weekend after getting our first win last weekend.

"We wanted to put on another three points and it’s a brilliant three points, especially as we lost a goal right after half time, that could have knocked our confidence a bit, but it didn’t look that way.

"We played well second half and we’ve managed to get the three points.

“It was a tough start, we knew that, we feel like we could have done better, we have played well, we’ve lost by the odd goal here and there, but our performances have been good.

"We’ve adapted to the league well and things we’ve been working on at the training ground are coming more to fruition every week and we’ve got two results on the bounce which is great.

“We think we’ve got a really good team, really resilient, good characters in the group.

"West Brom (2-1 defeat), we learned from that, came out slowly and they punished us, we couldn’t get back in the game.

"This time, decent goal from them, good one-two and a ball flashed across, which is always dangerous, but we responded well.

"We didn’t go into our shells and played well, got the goal back from the penalty and then got 2-1 and managed the game fairly well."

The result saw Town jump up to 15th in the table, but Shinnie, who bagged the winner himself, wasn’t reading anything into that yet.

He added: “We can’t really look at the table until a good 10, 15 games into the season.

“Huddersfield will show they’re a good side, they won’t be down there for long.

“It does make it look a bit better when you’re in mid-table, heading up the league, so back-to-back wins is big in this league, it’s difficult to get that.

“We’ve done it against good sides so we’ll take a break and then be raring to go for QPR.”