Jones blames Luton's '˜soft underbelly' for Accrington defeat

Hatters boss Nathan Jones was critical of his side's '˜soft underbelly' as they slumped to yet another home defeat this afternoon, beaten 2-0 by promotion-chasing Accrington Stanley.

With the scores goalless at half time, Luton conceded moments after the restart, as they had at Barnet recently, when Scott Brown tucked home from Josh Windass’ low cross.

Although Hatters huffed and puffed in the second period, they never really looked like ending a run of almost two years since they triumphed after going behind in a game, as Terry Gornell’s late goal moved Stanley into the top three.

Jones said: “We’ve had a little bit of a soft underbelly in terms of conceding weak goals, we did it at Barnet twice, did it at Stevenage here with a soft penalty, and then done it today and I’m bitterly disappointed.

“It’s stuff we constantly preach on zones, on marking zones, on being in zones for chances.

“We tried to exploit those zones, tried to get players in those zones, but people go to sleep and that’s what I’m saying about the soft underbelly.

“We’re not doing the nitty gritty, the real hard, difficult things, really well and at times we look an excellent team, we really look fluent.

“But unless you finish off chances and have that real killer killer instinct, that killer edge, then you’re not going to win games and you’re always susceptible to the sucker punch which we’ve been done with on the last three games.

“It’s just defending your box and that’s what we didn’t do well. It’s that fundamental things that we’ve got to do better and if we don’t do them better then we will not win football matches and that’s what I have to change here.

“They’ve been used to at the minute this season, to losing games and to being lacklustre, but that will change, that has to change.

“Now we’ve tried to change the style of how they play, but there’s no point having a good style if we don’t defend well and it’s basic things that we’ve got to do better.”