Bloomfield demands Luton 'put the ball at risk' to become the attacking force he desires
Hatters chief wants more end product from his new side
A desire to ‘put the ball at risk’ is something that Luton boss Matt Bloomfield wants to see far more from his new side as he bids to turn the Hatters into the kind of attacking outfit that he craves.
The newly-appointed Town chief was discussing the goalless draw against Preston North End at the weekend in which his team had nine attempts on goal, but only four of them on target, and none of them causing visiting keeper Freddie Woodman any significant trouble, the Lilywhites stopper easily preventing Jordan Clark twice, Carlton Morris and Elijah Adebayo from finding the net.
With the visitors clearly coming to Bedfordshire to leave with a point, barely threatening themselves, with just two attempts, none on target, it led to a drab stalemate that could still have been going on now, and neither side would have scored. With Bloomfield in charge of the highest-scoring team in League One, Wycombe Wanderers, the Chairboys racking up a half century of goals under his stewardship before he moved to Kenilworth Road, he only had a few days in which to try and get his ideas across before sending them out to do battle.
There were signs early on that his work might bear fruit, Town involved in some snappy interchanges in the middle of the pitch during the first half, while both centre halves Mark McGuinness and Tom Holmes looked to mix up their play with some short and long range passing too. It faded somewhat after the break, as Town never really looked like opening their account under the new manager, leading Bloomfield to say: “We did a lot of work on that (one-touch passing) in the last couple of days, and that came out early on and I was thinking ‘here we go, we’re off to something here.’
“Of course it’s hard to keep that momentum for the full 90 minutes if the odd pass goes astray, or you’re not quite creating that goal or the goalscoring opportunities, I understand that. But I thought we came out with a spring in our step, the boys pressed from the front, we were able to get in behind and create lots of nearly moments is probably right. Izzy (Jones) got in a few times down the right hand side, but maybe it was a little bit of that kind of day.
“When open play goals haven’t been easy to come by this season and with the numbers they got behind the ball Preston, they made it difficult for us at times, but we certainly could have put the ball at risk more at the top end of the pitch, we absolutely could have done that. We turned down a couple of opportunities to put the ball at risk, to turn out and retain possession which is not necessarily what we’re definitely after as we want to go and attack as much as possible, but that will be smoothed out in time to get to the product that we want.”
Going into a bit more detail into just what he means by wanting his team to not be content in taking the safe option when entering the final third, as with just 27 goals this term, Luton are now the fifth lowest scorers in the division now, Bloomfield continued: “It’s why the strikers get paid the most money. It’s the hardest bit on the pitch to score a goal and we have to build the confidence and create more opportunities for our forward players, in all areas and all aspects.
"I think there's time we could put the ball at risk more and be slightly more direct, but that all comes with time. That understanding and that synchronicity throughout the group comes with more and more work, and we’ll have to work hard to get there as quick as we possibly can. At times we could have passed in behind and maybe came out and retained possession.
"Once we did, a couple of times we ended up back with Thomas (Kaminski) and we’re not trying to dominate the ball to end up back with our goalkeeper when we could have really tried to go and create a goalscoring opportunity at the top of the pitch. That’s the bit that when I call it putting the ball at risk, to really go and take that final chance. It’s not always going to come off, the ball might be over-hit, it might get cut out, but we have to keep putting the ball at risk at the top of the pitch to create chances.
"That’s how you create them, hit the snapshot, set it for someone else to shoot, all those different elements that go into creating goalscoring opportunities. When we got there, a couple of times we came back out and retained possession but it’s not what we want. We want to go and score goals, but that’s not a criticism, absolutely not, the boys have taken on a lot of information and that will improve as we go.”
Although Luton finished with 61.6% possession during the afternoon, way more than they have enjoyed in recent matches, that isn’t a stat that Bloomfield is particularly concerned about going forward, as he added: “My teams, we don't go after possession as a percentage. We don’t go after dominating it for the sake of it. We want to have the ball to get to the top of the pitch and try and create opportunities. If we can go there in two passes, let’s go there in two passes. If we need to take four, five and six, we’ll take four, five and six.
"It’s not about trying to be possession dominant, it’s about trying to create goalscoring opportunities. So maybe we turned out and kept possession at times when we could have put the ball at risk, that’s the one thing we need to go back on slightly and really try and go and attack, but the boys have taken on a lot of information in three days. They've taken on a huge amount of information and we try to get that balance right between overloading them and giving them as much as they need. They’ve taken it on, so I think there’s definitely plenty to work on.”