Chong felt it was important Town bounced back from Sky Blues shocker
Luton winger targets three points against Cardiff City
Luton midfielder Tahith Chong felt it was important his side bounced back from a hugely frustrating performance against Coventry City when taking a point during the 1-1 draw with West Bromwich Albion on Friday night.
The Hatters had been 2-0 up at the Sky Blues with an hour gone late last month, only to see their opponents respond and claim all three points with a 3-2 success, Luton frittering their advantage away in timid fashion. Having also lost 2-1 to Sunderland ahead of that second half capitulation, it meant Chong and his team-mates were motivated to get something when the Baggies were in town, as he said: “We were very disappointed with that result (Coventry). Even if we weren’t playing our best game, to be 2-0 up at half time, away from home, you feel like you have to take something away, regardless of how we played.
"But that’s football. You can’t really go back in time, you just have to keep moving forward and keep working hard and improve from those moments. Anywhere you go, whether that’s away or at home, when you’re losing games it’s never easy, but I think the staff and the players do a very good job in bouncing back from games like that.
"You want to prevent those games and start performing and go on a consistent run but in football nothing is guaranteed. A team is not coming to show up and say ‘we’re just going to let Luton win,’ so for us it’s just about working hard, keep believing in what we’re doing as a group, as a staff and everyone else. It was a very positive performance for us, but we want to start turning these games into wins.”
Town’s return of a solitary point against the Baggies means that the Hatters have taken just 12 from their opening 13 games, a tally that is well below where they had expected to be at the beginning of the campaign. With just three victories under their belt it means Luton dropped back into the bottom three again following Plymouth Argyle’s 1-0 win over Portsmouth last night, as although Chong knows it has been a frustrating opening, he believes their last three home displays against Watford, Sunderland and Albion have seen signs of improvement.
The winger hopes that, along with some of Town’s injured players being available once more, will lead to an upturn in results, continued: “We know the start of the season hasn’t been good enough from us. The last three home performances, we felt some of them we could have won, but you don’t and sometimes that’s football. Even if you look at some of the games, they’re very similar, sometimes conceding at the wrong moment or right when we’ve got the teams and you feel like a couple more minutes we’re going to score the goal and they score from nowhere.
“We spoke about a lot of things in terms of how we want to start games and even how we want to finish games really. The last three home performances have been more like us. We’ve not picked up the points we wanted to, but it’s a benchmark for us and we’ve just got to keep improving. It has been tough, but for us as players we’ve just got to keep working hard.
"It’s good to get some of the players back, it’s compliments to Amari’i (Bell), Teden (Mengi) for playing 90 minutes after being out for a few weeks and compliments to Shandon (Baptiste), Walshy (Liam Walsh), Browny (Jacob Brown) and everyone for coming on as well. Hopefully the group keeps getting more healthy, there’s competition everywhere and we keep working hard as a team.”
With Luton now at home to Cardiff City this evening, ahead of a trip to Middlesbrough at the weekend, Chong is determined to get a welcome victory on the board, adding: “We want to turn the good performances into wins which as a player that’s all you play for. You want to win games, so hopefully we recover now and keep going again on Wednesday and hopefully get a win on Wednesday.”