Bloomfield welcomes Naismith's honesty as he encourages Town's players to speak up

Luton boss Matt Bloomfield was more than happy to see the honesty and passion on display from club captain Kal Naismith following Saturday’s 3-2 defeat against Plymouth Argyle as he encouraged the rest of his Town players to always speak up during his time at the helm.

With the Hatters having played for almost an hour against 10 men, they still left Kenilworth Road empty handed as the Pilgrims picked up all three points once Jordan Clark’s clearance rebounded in off an unsuspecting Bradley Ibrahim with just 15 minutes to go. It led to the 33-year-old coming out to speak to the press afterwards, as he gave a frank assessment of the contest, admitting that both he and his side hadn’t been good enough on the day, while he was critical of the lack of clear-cut chances Hatters created, especially when having a numerical advantage.

Having emerged from what was clearly a hugely disappointed dressing room, Naismith also stated the players would wait until Monday to properly debrief the manner in which they were beaten, due to the emotion that they were all feeling in the immediate aftermath of the result. Asked what he thought of Naismith’s comments, and if that had happened this week, Bloomfield said: “We’ve had meetings all together, we’ve all had discussions, we’ve had three good meetings this week and lots of work on the training ground.

"The players always have their opinions, that’s how I want to manage. It’s a two-way street, we have to understand what they’re thinking and feeling, how they see the game, for us to understand how to deliver what we need to deliver and that’s how I am. I liked being that way as a player, I always had questions or opinions and the lads have been very good. They’ve reacted in the right manner and trained really hard.

“I know Kal’s a very passionate guy, he cares a lot and we’re all trying to work to become better. I've seen the headlines, I've been told about Kal’s interview, we’ve discussed it and we all care very deeply about making this the best we can this season. I think Kal is fantastic, he’s a brilliant captain, he’s been a fantastic player for this football club over a number of years, we’re so pleased to have him here.

"He’s played a big part for us so far and we’ll continue to do so. We all want to be better in what we’re doing, me included. We have a deep desire to be better and when results don’t go our way, I love the fact that Kal looks insular first. The first thing I do is look in the mirror, what could I have done better? What should I have done better? And if we all do that then we’re heading in the right direction.

“One of the crucial things we went after in the summer was some really good seniors with the right attitude and the right temperament to help those around them, especially the younger players we’ve got in the group. You mentioned two of them (Naismith and George Saville) and they’re fantastic those boys, along with Nahki (Wells) and several others, Sheasy (James Shea), so there’s some real solid seniors that we’ve got amongst the group.”

After the full time whistle, Naismith and his team-mates were booed off by sections of the Kenilworth Road crowd who were witnessing a second straight defeat on home soil, as with 45 shots in those two matches, they have managed to score just two penalties. On whether he felt that was a deserved reaction, the boss continued: “I understand our supporters’ disappointment with the result, absolutely. When you play against 10 men like we did for a large portion of the game, the expectation is that you win and the expectation on ourselves is that we should have won the game.

"Ultimately we didn’t, so everyone was very disappointed about that. After the game, that disappointment and that frustration can be very obvious and prevalent from us all that are involved in the day, so it's about going back and analysing the game. Trying to see where we can get better, trying to look at the facts of the day, the amount of chances we created, the amount of value of those opportunities we created, the amount of touches in our opposition’s box, try and get cleaner in those areas and make more of those opportunities into goals.”

Heading into the season, the expectation from a large number of supporters, along with almost every bookmaker, was that Town, who were relegated from the Championship last term, would be right up there in the title race, named favourites to win the league and secure an immediate return to the second tier.

Asked whether that was a factor behind the current disgruntlement from the terraces, Town having won four and lost three of their opening seven games to sit ninth in the table ahead of this weekend’s trip to Lincoln City, Bloomfield added: “I think there’s an expectation because leading up to this season I kept getting told about the odds and the expectation on us as a football club and a team, but there’s been over 30 players coming in and out of the building, there’s been a huge turnover.

"I've listened to some interviews from other managers who have been involved in similar situations recently and you speak to people around the game where there’s been such a big turnover and it doesn’t always look and feel perfect straight away, that’s just the nature of putting a group together and a team together and trying to get results off the back of it. We feel like we’ve had a solid start, we know that there’s more to come from us and we’re really disappointed to lose the game.

"The goals that we gave away were very, very disappointing, but the average age of the squad has reduced a lot and with younger players comes the odd mistake. It’s just unfortunate for us that three came in the same game and it punished us with the result. There’s a lot that’s right as well though. We didn’t get the right result on Saturday but the boys worked incredibly hard. They created lots of openings and we have to make sure that we take more of them for the results to go in our favour.”