Jones: Teams are changing when they come to Kenilworth Road

Luton were held a 1-1 draw with Crewe Alexandra yesterday in a game where they struggled to exert any kind of dominance throughout the 90 minutes, failing to build on Danny Hylton's opener on the stroke of half time.

Ryan Lowe deservedly levelled just after the hour mark as Hatters failed to create enough opportunities to significantly test visiting keeper Ben Garratt, which Jones felt was down to the Railwaymen abandoning their usual free-flowing style in favour of a more conservative approach.

The Town chief said: “I don't think we were at our fluent best, but they condensed the space and sat off, which is the first time they've done that, as normally they press high and go after you, which was the prep work we had done all week.

“But they sat off and tried to hit us on the counter attack, and frustrate us a little bit.

“A lot of sides come and people aren’t playing their normal game, they’re changing for us and when I watch other games, they don’t seem to be doing that for anyone else.

“We’ve built a reputation at the minute, so we’re going to need to change something, but the worst thing for us was having got in a 1-0, we couldn’t, one, go on and capitalise on that and two, hold out for the win.”

“It was a fair result if I’m honest, they're a decent side, we saw that, they're similar to us in how they move the ball and how they want to play.”

Striker Jack Marriott, who had an early goal ruled out for offside, struggled to get into the game once more, tightly shackled by the visiting defence, until he made may for Josh McQuoid with 10 minutes to go.

On the 22-year-old’s display, Jones continued: “We weren’t as fluent and when space is limited then Jack’s not as effective so that’s something we need to look at, but he’s an important player for us, he’s an excellent player for us.

“At the minute when sides come out against us with more space then Jack flourishes, but today, they condensed it, they sat off, so there wasn’t that much space for him to work.”

Meanwhile, Alex boss Steve Davis was delighted with his own side’s performance, adding: “I thought we passed the ball really well, we set up just to let the centre halves have the ball and hit it a bit longer, rather than try and play through which you can do with the diamond, you've got to make sure there are no spaces.

"We kept our discipline very well and then when we had possession, we kept the ball really well, caused them problems in the first half, without being able to score.

"We were creating more opportunities than them, the goal came a little bit out of the blue, the one time we did switch off and we got punished for it.

"Other than that, I thought we were excellent right the way through the game.

"Second half, we knew we were still in the game, knew we could create some chances, and for the first half an hour, we just pressurised them, kept the ball really well and overall, every single one of them were excellent."