Benson: We’ve thrown top three place away

Luton’s 3-2 defeat at home to third placed Wycombe Wanderers on Tuesday saw Town fall 13 points adrift of their opponents with just eight games to go.

A frustrated Benson said: “We had a great opportunity to get promoted this season in the automatic spots and at the moment we’re doing our best to throw it all away.

“Whether that’s through individual errors or just collectively as a team, it’s not good enough.

“Personally, I think we’ve probably pushed it too far now. What’s the gap? Thirteen points from eight games – I think that’s probably beyond reach.

“I’m an optimist but even I’d be pushing it to say we can still get in there.

“If we win all our last eight games then you never know but it certainly looks a very hard feat now.

“I can stand here and say we need to work harder in training or (in the) next game it’s going to be all right, but they are just words.

“I reckon there are a lot of supporters getting bored of hearing people saying it.

“I know I’m getting bored of saying it myself. We’ve got to find a way out of it. We really need to get a win and take it from there.

“You come out and say that we want to get automatic promotion, like I said after the Portsmouth game, and you lose two games running and you look a bit silly saying it.”

Striker Elliot Lee also felt the same, as he continued: I think that automatic spot might be out of reach now, but as long as we secure a play-off spot, we’re more than good enough to go up through the play-offs.”

Boss John Still also conceded the top three chase was over after Town’s fifth successive defeat and a seventh loss in eight games.

He added: “To go up automatically is probably gone now, but we’re playing well enough to get into the play-offs.

“People have got to cut the errors out as there’s very little I can do about that.”