Bree impressed with the Hatters for grinding out results despite not being at their best

Luton defender James Bree is impressed by the manner in which his side have been grinding out results recently despite, in his eyes, not being at their very best in recent weeks.

The Hatters needed a second half penalty on Tuesday night to defeat bottom side Barnsley, Elijah Adebayo firing into the top corner as Town eventually broke the resolve of the struggling Tykes, who are now seemingly destined for League One.

However it was a tough night with Luton not hitting the heights they had done against Bournemouth last month, but despite that, they are still four unbeaten, with an impressive 10 points from a possible 12 and just one point off the play-offs.

Bree said: “It’s another three points, the points tally is going forward, that’s what the gaffer said before the game, 'just get another win.'

"I don’t think it was pretty, I don’t think it was our best football at all and I don’t think we’ve played our best football for a while now.

"But we’re grinding out results and that’s the main thing.

“They came out and played quite well the first 20 minutes.

"We sat off them, didn’t give the fans much to cheer about but then we nicked a goal, and should have really kept a clean sheet, but a good three points.

“We always go on about starting quick, starting quick and I don’t know, for whatever reason we didn’t do that."

Town might have had a spot-kick in the first half, when Adebayo had his legs taken away, but referee Andy Davies gave nothing.

He did however award a penalty after the break, when Fred Onyedinma went over under a challenge from goalkeeper Bradley Collins on the hour mark, who then attempted to delay the kick being taken, with some delaying antics labelled as ‘disrespectful’ by manager Nathan Jones.

On the two incidents, Bree said: “From where I was, it (first half shout) looked stonewall.

"It doesn’t matter now, we’ve taken three points, but Eli definitely wasn’t happy about it.

"He got his penalty in the end and it was a good one, so never mind.

“I didn’t really understand that (Barnsley stopping the penalty being taken), I didn’t really know what was going on.

"Once the penalty was given, whether we waited five minutes or not we were going to take it.

"Eli did really well to keep his cool and stuck it in the top bin which I knew he was going to do anyway.”

After having 29 days off over the Christmas period due to Covid outbreaks, Town went into January, sitting 10 points off the top six and down in 15th.

However, a superb return of five wins from seven has seen them shoot into play-off contention, as on the feeling of being in among the pack fighting it out for the play-offs, Bree added: “It’s not bad, it’s all come really quickly.

"Four, five games we’ve been picking up points, picking up points.

"Obviously we do look at that (table) and it’s something we want to achieve, but I think we just keep doing, keep churning the games out game by game.

"Hopefully we can be in and around it by the end of the season and you never know what’s going to happen."