Bloomfield felt Town were guilty of being too direct during limp Blackburn loss

Luton boss Matt Bloomfield admitted his side had gone too direct for his liking at times during their 1-0 defeat to Blackburn Rovers on Saturday.

With the game considered by many as a must-win contest, and the Hatters without Elijah Adebayo for the rest of the season following his cruciate ligament injury in the 1-1 draw with Leeds United, Town went with skipper Carlton Morris upfront, midfielder Tahith Chong as the closest player to him. However, in the first period, the hosts were reduced to going long to try and pick out Morris, who despite winning the most aerial duels in the Championship, struggled against an imposing centre half pairing of Dominic Hyam and Danny Batth.

He did manage to rack up another 10 throughout his 86 minutes on the field, but only one ever looked like it would lead to a chance, Milli Alli not quite reading his flick-on in the opening stages. With Chong not a physical player at all, and never has been throughout his career, he was wasted when asked to do such a task, unsurprisingly winning just the one header all game, and apart from one break in the first period, his threat was easily extinguished, restricted to just 12 touches in total.

Despite that, Town carried on with their tactics, as they failed to create anything noteworthy for either attacker, Chong taken off just 10 minutes into the second period when Rovers had broken the deadlock, January addition Lasse Nordas on in his place, another who struggled to fully get into the game, with a mere 10 touches himself. Asked if he thought Luton had gone too long when Chong was on the field, Bloomfield said: “We wanted to go out and round to the wingbacks, but it was probably a tense, scrappy game first half.

“At home recently, against Middlesbrough and Leeds, we’ve come out of the blocks and really attacked from the first moment. It just didn’t quite feel like we did that today, so again we’ll go back and watch the game. I think maybe we could have used our wingbacks even more and gone and combined in wide areas to create a higher percentage chance of getting a quality delivery into the box and probe around the box, but yes, we didn’t do that today unfortunately. We played some really good football on Tuesday evening at Stoke and we’re disappointed we haven't been able to replicate that.”

Another issue was Alli in the left wingback berth, as he was given the chance following his point-saving heroics at Stoke City on Tuesday night due to Alfie Doughty also being ruled out for the rest of the season. He had the odd dangerous moment in the first period, which briefly raised spirits amongst the home faithful, although more often than not was easily snuffed out.

After the break, and with Rovers down to 10 men, he ambitiously tried his luck from outside the box on too many occasions, firing off four shots, as although one of them hit the woodwork, that was down to a fortunate deflection, his others rashly blazed way, way off target. On giving him the chance from the start, Bloomfield continued: “I think it’s probably a position where he’s not a natural wingback, he’s a winger playing as a wingback, which gives us the attacking impetus.

"He’s had such a big night on Tuesday night with all the emotion that surrounds that and he didn’t quite have that final touch today, but I thought he did well in moments. He kept getting to the by-line, still kept getting opportunities to cross and again, as a group we didn’t have that composure in the final third.”

While Luton lacked a clinical touch, Rovers on the other hand, made the most of their brief opportunities in attack, as from their four attempts on goal, two were on target, the first seeing Yuki Ohashi dink over an advancing Thomas Kaminski for what turned out to be the winner, the other from Tyrhys Dolan forcing the Belgian into a stoppage time save. With Town having only conceded once in their previous three matches in Bedfordshire, the manner in which they were breached was a cause of annoyance for Bloomfield, who added: “I’m really disappointed with the goal against.

"There wasn’t a lot in it and it’s probably vital in those moments that you make sure you keep the back door locked and you don’t concede. To come out after half time and go one-nil down after the moments that we had, gave ourselves a mountain to climb. It was the one big chance in the game and if it’s a tight, slightly scrappy affair then you just keep a zero on your sheet. As soon as we gave that goal away it gives our opposition something to defend and they don’t need to come out and chase the game anymore, especially when they go down to 10 men.

"Football’s decided on moments. We’ve given away a big chance, a big moment and when moments come our way we haven’t quite taken them. We’ve been doing it really well recently, we’ve been so resolute defensively, so solid. We gave away a big chance which we’re disappointed with. It gave us something we had to chase and when you are where we are in the league it’s not easy to do that.”