Defensive display impresses Bloomfield as Luton stop the rot

Hatters boss Matt Bloomfield was able to take some positives out of Saturday’s goalless draw against Preston North End, as he witnessed his new side pick up a first clean sheet since November, while also denying their visitors a single attempt on target throughout the entire 90 minutes.

Having shipped an alarming 44 goals all season, the third worst in the division, Luton had been breached 20 times in 11 matches since beating Hull City 1-0 on November 23, an average of almost two per game. That never once looked like being added to at Kenilworth Road on Saturday though, as set up up Paul Heckingbottom, the Lilywhites, with one away win to their name all campaign, and having been beaten 3-1 by West Bromwich Albion in their last venture away from Deepdale, were clearly content to leave with a point from pretty much the opening whistle.

In fact the closest they came were two efforts from outside the box in the second period, Andrew Hughes trying to catch Thomas Kaminski out from distance and then Kaine Kesler-Hayden’s hopeful volley that was woefully wide too. It meant that although his own team didn’t get things right from an attacking viewpoint, with just four attempts on target themselves, all easy for visiting stopper Freddie Woodman, there were some bright sparks for Bloomfield to take, including ending a run of five straight defeats in all competitions.

Speaking afterwards, he said: “I don't want to be downbeat, a point is a step in the right direction and coming off the results that there have been and the goals against that there have been, I think we have to say that is a positive coming out of it with a clean sheet. It is probably quite rare (to not face any shots on target) I would suggest but of course it’s about winning. The only stat that matters is the goals column and we wanted to win the game but a point on our column and a good foundation to start, so there’s some positives to come from it as well.

“I think it would be naive for us to expect it would have been perfect from day one. There’s three days on the grass and in terms of discipline out of possession and the resilience of the group to stop any kind of goalscoring opportunities, we have to be pleased with that. To win games of football you have to have your goals against column low, so that needed to be addressed. It needs more work on it absolutely, and five defeats in a row, we needed to turn the tide a little bit.”

Although Town got their defensive game to the level that Bloomfield would like, it wasn’t the same at the other end, as the Lilywhites were able to keep Luton at arm’s length for the majority of the contest. The new manager will now show his players the kind of areas he wants them to improve on ahead of Tuesday night’s trip to Oxford United, adding: “We always do it every game, there’ll be some nice bits, but you can win 4-0 and it’s not all perfect. You can draw or get beat and there’s some good bits to come out of it as well and that’s the bits that we believe you go after, because if you keep going after the performance bits and the principle bits then the results absolutely have to come and I think our work has proven that.

"In terms of the freshness with which the boys have had this week and the way they’ve implemented our work, the work that they’ve done has been very pleasing and it’s going to be an ongoing process to get to the final product. We understand that, we want to score goals, we want to get forward as much as we possibly can, absolutely, but like I say, in terms of a foundation, I think it’s a good start.”