Bree: 'Disjointed' Hatters weren't 'good enough' in final 10 minutes of 'rubbish' Latics loss

Hatters defender James Bree labelled the Hatters ‘not good enough’ as they gifted victory to Wigan Athletic on Saturday with what he felt was a ‘disjointed’ performance in the latter stages of the contest.

Carlton Morris’s third goal in four games had appeared to be sending the hosts on their way to a first home win of the season as with 10 minutes to go, the Latics hadn’t even managed a shot at Ethan Horvath’s goal.

With boss Nathan Jones having brought on Cauley Woodrow, Cameron Jerome and Harry Cornick at this point, for Elijah Adebayo, Morris and Luke Freeman, it means Town’s attacking threats had rescinded, and Wigan made them pay, although their equaliser had a huge element of fortune, Callum Lang’s cross-shot hit defender Tom Lockyer and going into the net.

Jones responded by bringing on Fred Onyedinma and Luke Berry for midfielder duo Allan Campbell and Jordan Clark, which saw Bree drop into the back three.

In a stretched final stages, they conceded again, Onyedinma unable to cover the fun of Thelo Aasgaard, who curled a brilliant finish beyond Horvath for the winner.

Dissecting the defeat afterwards, Bree said: “We’re all absolutely gutted in there.

"On the pitch it felt like for 70 minutes we were absolutely cruising, we were just a little bit naive towards the end when we were trying to push for that second goal.

"When they nicked it and got an equaliser, I think we had a decision to make, whether we play for a draw and sit back in or if we go for it.

"The lads who came on were all attacking subs and rightly so, we went for the game, we just made a few wrong decisions and they ended up winning 2-1 and it’s just not good enough really.

“It was quite an open game towards the end.

"Sonny (Bradley) just came in and said watching it on the sidelines, it was crazy, he just couldn’t quite figure out what we were doing.

"I think it felt like that towards the end, we were a bit disjointed and some of us didn’t really know what we were doing.

"That’s our fault and it’s just one of those that has got away from us today.”

With Lockyer having kept a front three containing Josh Magennis and Will Keane quiet for the entire game beforehand, Bree know it was a tough moment for the Welshman to have an own goal against his name.

He continued: “It happens to everyone.

"The cross has come in, he’s obviously tried to clear it and it’s just ricocheted off him unfortunately.

"No-one’s going to say anything to him, it happens.”

With Luton on top, they had chances to add to their lead, Gabe Osho curling inches wide of the post, while there were further chance too, Campbell just beaten to the ball by defender Jack Whatmough and then Jerome dispossessing Curtis Tilt in the area only to delay his shot for too long.

Bree knew doubling the lead should have been enough, adding: “It’s easy to say that now looking back, but I think if we had nicked that second goal we would have been cruising, as they would have had to push on and there would have been so much extra space for us.

"There was a lot of space in the game, but if we’d have just taken advantage of it a little bit more we’d have been fine.

"For me personally, it did feel like we were cruising a little bit and we said the only way they were going to score was on the counter, or maybe from a set-piece, something like that.

"We’ve made a little mistake, they’ve got the goal and then at the end, they’ve just countered us, we’re out of position and they’ve ended up scoring.

"It’s just a nightmare scenario really.

“We’ve all just been saying in there, I don’t think it was our best performance at all, but at the same time we all felt like we were so comfortable, so to come away with nothing is just rubbish.”