Clark believes international break has come at the right time for an out of form Luton

Midfielder Jordan Clark believes the international break has come at a good time for the Hatters to reflect on what has been a thoroughly disappointing start to the Championship season.

With Town having been relegated from the Premier League last term, then the expectation was that Rob Edwards’ side would mount a challenge to be back there this year, Clark saying before the beginning of the campaign that the aim was to win the league this time. Four games in and that goal looks a fair way away, Luton’ s 2-1 defeat to QPR on Friday night making it just a single point gained with defeats to Burnley and Preston, as they sit second bottom in the table.

Town now have this weekend off to lick their wounds and it’s something Clark feels will be important, as speaking to the BBC, he said: “We need to address it now. I think the break's probably come at a good time for us. We can have a good look at ourselves, go through the games we've had so far and assess our performances as we've got to turn things around quickly.

"We’ve got to come together and stick together. When we come back from the break we’ve got to start picking up some points and it's just one of them. The break has probably come at a good time, we can have a little reset and we need to brush up on things quickly as it’s a long season and we don’t want to fall too far behind.

“When we're back in, it’s go through the videos and review the games. We’ve got to learn quickly as you don't want to fall too far behind in this Championship because it's a tough league to come through. The positive thing is we're playing well and we are dominating games, but it’s brushing up on the basics. Defending and stopping balls going in our net, that's the main thing.”

Luton’s defeat on Friday was met with boos at the full time whistle from a home crowd who have now seen Luton lose eight out of 13 games at Kenilworth Road this calendar year, with just two wins against Brighton and AFC Bournemouth to celebrate. Clark, who is now in his fourth year with the club, and Town’s third longest serving player behind Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu and James Shea, could sympathise with the reaction, as he continued: "You can feel it first half when we went 1-0 up, it was like ‘here we go, this is what we need.’

"They’re always great and we can’t fault them. They’ll always stick with us as the effort always is there. There’s a little bit of frustration which you understand as we lost a lot of games last year. We’ve come down and there’s a lot of expectation on us to win games. We’ve not started off well but they’ve just got to stick with us. We’ll turn it around I’m sure and we’ll definitely be up there at the end of the season.”

On what he feels needs to change for the Hatters, who go to Millwall once the break ends, before hosting Sheffield Wednesday and then visiting Plymouth Argyle, Clark, who insisted the unity within the squad is as strong as ever, said: “We're always together, I don’t think it’s the effort, it's just brushing up little things and sloppy areas.

"It’s just giving balls away and then not marking the box. In the Championship you can’t do that, they’ve got good strikers and good players. Every team in this league has got good players and if you don’t mark in the box they’re going to score goals. Whenever we seem to get in the box, the defenders seem to be clearing all our crosses and shots and it’s just something we're not doing right at the minute.

"It’s not the effort, it's just a bit of experience and talking and organising, helping each other out. We’ve got a lot of quality and when you’re dominating games, getting a lot of territory in their half, getting corners and shots., You can feel the crowd, the energy was great first half, especially when you’re penning teams in, but you’ve got to do something with it.

"We’ve got to create more chances and we need to be scoring more goals, we know that. It was an own goal, so we’ve not scored again. We get into good areas again and just final ball is wasteful and for the amount of quality we've got in this team it’s just not good enough. The goals we conceded were so, so poor. Like I said at Preston, if you don’t put the ball in the back of the net and don’t stop it going in your net, you’re not going to win any football games, so it’s just doing the basics well.”

One thing that manager Rob Edwards was glad to see was the back of the transfer window as Town had a number of players linked with moves away ahead of the season and in the opening few weeks of the campaign. They did lose Chiedozie Ogbene who got an immediate return to the Premier League with Ipswich Town, although managed to keep hold of stars such as Teden Mengi, Alfie Doughty, Elijah Adebayo and Thomas Kaminski.

Asked whether it had unsettled the squad, Clark added: “Probably, it always does. You don't know who's going to try and take our players and who's going to come in. Obviously it's not our business what happens, it's to do with the manager and the staff, but we did well last year and a lot of our players did well last year so they're going to be linked to clubs.

"I suppose it can be unsettling, but we're professionals and we've just got to get on with it. It's no reason for the result. There's a lot of expectation on us, we did ourselves proud last year, we had a good fight last year so there's probably a target on our backs for the Championship, but we know that and we’ve got to be better.”