Familiar tale of woe for Bloomfield as toothless Hatters draw yet another home blank

Luton boss Matt Bloomfield was left to rue yet another dreadful performance in front of goal from his side during their 1-0 defeat to Blackburn Rovers on Saturday.

The Hatters were able to amass 18 shots in total during the contest, but despite Thelo Aasgaard blasting against the underside of the bar after a terrific run in which he waltzed past three players, the ball bouncing just the wrong side of the line, plus Milli Alli’s deflected cross-shot that also fortunately struck the woodwork, they managed just a paltry three on target, barely tested visiting keeper Balazs Toth, who was making only his third appearance in English football.

In fact one of them didn’t even reach him, Aasgaard’s attempt blocked away by a defender, while in the second period Reece Burke’s curler and a tame Teden Mengi stoppage time effort, were the only times he was called upon. Centre half Mark McGuinness sent two close range headers off target from Jordan Clark set-pieces, but with Alli wildly skewing some ambitious shots from outside the box or tight angles horribly wide, as did Josh Bowler, Aasgaard himself slipping and doing the same, it meant Rovers kept a first clean sheet on the road since February to end their own eight match winless run.

For Luton, who put another self inflicted nail in their relegation coffin, it was a fifth blank in eight matches on home soil under Bloomfield, as they have scored just 10 times during his 16 matches in charge, four of those coming in two games, while with 37 in total, the Hatters are comfortably the lowest scorers in the Championship. On how he can somehow try and solve that conundrum with four fixtures to go now, the manager said: “Keep working, keep training, keep probing, keep trying to create a higher big chance.

"We didn't create enough big chances today, there was one big chance in the game and it ended up in the back of the net. We had shots from the edge of the box but we have to stay slightly patient in those moments. The quality on the final delivery, the cross, or when we get higher up the pitch, putting the ball at risk, to create a higher calibre of chance, but we understand the situation and maybe that’s why we took a lot of pot-shots from outside the box today. When the opportunity arises, absolutely take it, but we had to remain patient and try to probe a little bit more and we just didn’t quite find those moments.”

Even when the visitors were reduced to 10 men just before the hour mark following the red card to full debutant Kristi Montgomery, the Hatters weren’t able to make their extra man count, as they were jeered off at the full time whistle by a Kenilworth Road crowd who have witnessed their side score just 21 goals in 21 matches this term.

Bloomfield added: “We just didn’t create enough big moments, enough clear-cut opportunities. On Tuesday evening (1-1 draw at Stoke) some of the football we played around the edge of the box was fantastic. We wanted to go and do that again, but unfortunately for us it wasn’t to be and we’re disappointed with that. We’ve hit the bar twice from long range efforts and on another day one of those goes in and really gives everyone a lift and we go in search of a winner.

"Macca’s got on the end of one Clicker free kick, we got in and around the box a lot but just didn’t create enough clear-cut opportunities. We crashed the bar, I think Thelo kept going, kept trying to probe, kept trying to get down that left hand side with Milli and Amari’i (Bell), if that goes in then we could really step on, the place lifts and off we go in search of a winner, but unfortunately it wasn’t to be.

“When you’re at the other end of the league maybe those chances find a way of going in and the momentum is with you. We’ve had good momentum. For five weeks we’ve been doing fantastic and I’ve really enjoyed watching us. We played with real intensity and we didn’t quite have that today, but we still found opportunities to try and keep knocking on the door to try and get that goal back. If one of them had gone in then we probably would have seen a different end to the game, but it didn’t.”