Jones gutted that dominant Hatters are somehow beaten

Luton produced easily their best performance at home under Jones, but were left disappointed as Matt Harrold’s 12th minute goal settled the encounter.

Town bossed possession and territory throughout, but try as they might, couldn’t break through against the Red Devils, as their four game winning run was ended.

Jones said: “Performance-wise, I thought we were outstanding.

“The way we moved the ball, the way we created, the amount of chances, opportunities, possession we had, was enough to win two or three games.

“But we didn’t. Credit to Crawley, they had probably one chance in the game, took it and then they showed a real resilience to defend and to graft and to grind out a result.

“In terms of me, I’m happy with how we played, because we moved the ball fantastically well, that’s as dominant a game as you’re likely to see at this level, regardless of score and I’m pleased for that.

“I’m just bitterly disappointed that we didn’t convert that into three points, because if we had won that it would have been a wonderful, wonderful performance and a wonderful day for Luton Town.”

Hatters weren’t without their chances during the game either, as Jonathan Smith fired against the base of the post in the first half, before sub Paul Benson saw his free header strike the crossbar late on.

Jones continued: “Those things happen, but you’ve got to take your chances and we had enough chances to have won that game, enough situations where we got into their box and behind them.

“We didn’t quite takes those opportunities and that’s a frustrating thing because we work on stuff, but we didn’t have that real clinical edge.

“Their keeper’s made some saves, we’ve hit the woodwork twice, Benno’s had a point blank chance, they’ve knocked one off the line, had some penalty appeals, but we shouldn’t rely on them.

“We’ve got to have a clinical edge and if you do that and take more chances than they do then you win games.

“The first goal is so important in games, because it gives sides something to defend or cling on to. We’ve got to be clinical and the other day (against Leyton Orient) we had probably a hundredth of the chances we had and won the game 1-0.

“They were very deep, sat back and it wasn’t as if we couldn’t break them down as we did on a number of occasions, we just we weren’t clinical.”