Basic errors are 'killing' Hatters boss as Town are their own worst enemies at Blackburn Rovers

Luton boss Rob Edwards declared that the number of Town’s basic errors they made once more during their 2-0 defeat at Blackburn Rovers on Saturday is ‘killing’ him.

The Hatters chief saw his side have little issue in the opening half an hour at Ewood Park, as in a game with serious little quality on display, they were more than holding their own against an in-form home team who had won their last five matches, keeping four clean sheets in that time too. However, goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski then needlessly gave away a throw-in which saw imposing striker Makhtar Gueye beat the tackle of Tom Krauß to find Amario Cozier-Duberry.

His run into the box appeared to have been halted by Elijah Adebayo, but as the ball dropped to him, despite being under pressure from the striker, plus team-mates Mark McGuinness and Jordan Clark, the on-loan Brighton & Hove Albion attacker was able to slam a low shot past Kaminski and into the corner of the net to open the scoring.

Then, just eight minutes later, Luton were crucially undone again, a long ball down the visitors’ left sending Yuki Ohashi away, Tahith Chong just sticking out a leg to try and intercept. His pass across the six yard box was somehow fluffed by Gueye, only to see on-loan Liverpool defender Owen Beck lurking to make it 2-0 and give Town yet another mountain to climb on the road.

They couldn’t manage to scale it, substitute Liam Walsh sent off with 18 minutes left for a poor and needless challenge on Ohashi, as summing up his side’s efforts, Edwards pointed to the mistakes that his players made, as they had done so at Norwich City last time out too, saying: “Away from home, we quietened the crowd, all right they got a bit more of the ball, but not creating too much. We’d shown a threat, had a couple of set-pieces, we were in the game.

"Then one missed clearance, the build-up to the first goal, ball down the side that whether we need to put it out or not I don’t know, and then we don’t deal with the throw-in. A missed tackle, they turned, loads of bodies around in the box, we don’t deal with Cozier-Duberry and it’s in the back of the net. Really poor defending the box.

"Then a decent reaction after the first goal, we got on the front foot again and then another ball down the side. We don’t play offside and certainly not in that moment. We haven’t matched the run, so an easy ball down the side and it was a gift. At 2-0 it’s a huge uphill task for us. It’s killing me, it is. A throw-in when we have the numbers there, we dive in, we allow someone to turn and then we’ve got loads of bodies around.

"We can close it slightly quicker maybe from the opposite side to be around Cozier-Duberry but then we have three at least around the ball when he gets a shot off, the second one is just, yes. People made some basic errors again just like a couple of weeks ago at Norwich and it’s costing us.”

The Town chief, who saw his side lose for the seventh straight game on the road in the Championship did try to glean some positives from their efforts in the second period as with Rovers happy to try and maintain their advantage, Luton did have the better of things, Carlton Morris dragging a volley narrowly wide, with a number of other decent positions coming to nothing.

In all honesty, the Hatters never once really looked like getting anything from the game though, as Edwards added: “The performance in the second half was good. At that point we’ve got more urgency and we’ve got to try and speed the game up, and we did that. We took the ball more and we showed some courage, won more duels and everything else, all the stuff that should be a given. Then it was difficult (red card to Walsh), we were in the ascendancy and then down to 10 men. It clearly made a difference even though we stayed on the front foot and tried to be as positive as possible, that made it very difficult.

"They defended the box better than we did today. There’s not much in the game I don’t think, you could see that with your eyes and you look at your phone and look at your stats. They had a big chance at the end when we were down to 10, we’d put Zack (Nelson) on and we were just going for it, but other than that there’s not loads in it. We’ve taken the ball, we’ve had chances and they've defended the box better than we did.”