Frustrated Bloomfield talks up Luton's resilience during 'stodgier' than expected Dons win

Despite being as frustrated as Town’s supporters during what he labelled a ‘stodgier’ than expected 1-0 opening night win over AFC Wimbledon last Friday, Hatters boss Matt Bloomfield didn’t want there to be any ‘negative connotations’ surrounding the performance, hailing his players for showing a newfound resilience that has been lacking in recent times.

With Luton kicking things off under the lights and in front of the SKY TV cameras, taking on a side who were promoted from League Two via the play-offs, Town themselves having dropped down from the Championship after a season in the Premier League the previous year, most of those who turned up at Kenilworth Road were expecting a comfortable victory for the hosts.

However, they were then treated to anything but that, witnessing an insipid 90 minutes of football, Luton struggling to ever show the kind of goal threat that saw them hit the net 19 times in their warm-up matches, recording just one shot on target all evening, that when Reuell Walters’ ambitious snapshot from range was well saved by keeper Nathan Bishop.

Despite their difficulties upfront, Town did look solid defensively throughout the contest, and were able to eventually garner the three points, visiting defender Ryan Johnson heading Nahki Wells’ cross past his own keeper with just five minutes remaining. Although there hasn’t been a great deal of praise for the Hatters since, Bloomfield didn’t want anyone to be feeling down about what was a first victory and welcome three points of the campaign.

He said: “There was a big build-up as there always is, every year, every season, but obviously probably more so because of what’s happened last season and over the last couple of years. Lots of expectation, a big build-up to the first game, opening night, we want to be better, we have to be better in what we do, but to get off to a winning start and a clean sheet was the positives from the night.

“I was as frustrated as everyone, absolutely as frustrated as everyone else as I think we felt the emotion of the night. We all wanted to turn up and put on a show and it wasn’t that, but I watched it back Saturday morning and we got to the final third a lot, we got in the penalty area a lot. It was just a blocked cross or an overload that we didn’t make the most of and that’s where we need to have our eyes firmly focused and make sure we’re cleaner in that top third.

“I don’t want there to be a negative connotation to all of this either. We won a football match, the first one out of the season, with a clean sheet and we’re off to a winning start and no-one’s smiling, so we need to smile as well. We have to be better, I understand that. We ended up in a game where it was a lot more stodgier than any of us wanted it to be, but there’s going to be lots of different challenges and we have to find ways of overcoming that.

“We want to be better in our performance as we want to chase the performance first and foremost. We want to win every game, but if you just go after winning every which way, how are you going to do that? It has to be with a good performance first, and the performance wasn’t what we wanted, but the boys stuck on it.

"There’s one thing you cannot level at the group that they didn’t stick at it. They kept probing and kept trying. It wasn’t necessarily coming off every time, but the boys absolutely stuck at it and I will never criticise them for that as they showed courage, they showed resilience to keep going and I’m not sure there’s been enough resilience and courage shown at times in the last few years. So for this group to show that, I’m really proud of them.

"We’re going to have loads and loads of different challenges and it’s up to us to be defensively robust. We’re going to have to be solid defensively, but we want to be a team that attacks, we want to be a team that creates more. We didn’t create anywhere near as much as we wanted to on Friday evening, but it certainly wasn’t an easy scenario in which to do so and we’re going to have to keep on improving.”

Although the Hatters were never at their best in the final third on the night, Bloomfield did concede that their opponents had to take some credit for that due to the manner in which they defended. It had been no surprise to the Town chief though, the Dons having been incredibly hard to score against during their passage to the League One via the play-offs last term, as he added: “Everything they presented in pre-season was that they were going to press teams, then they came and sat back, with seven or eight behind the ball and a couple upfront who were trying to run the channels.

“They conceded 35 I believe in their league games, so again, anyone who thought we were just going to turn up and roll them over, that’s not the way. Johnny’s (Jackson, manager) got them defensively solid. They’re very comfortable being out of possession, they’re very comfortable to be in their back five and their three midfield players in front and defend their goal. They don’t give away much and I thought they showed a real defensive solidity and resilience on Friday evening.

"We had a couple of nice moves early on and had that come to something and we scored early then it’s a completely different game as they have to come out and try and get themselves back in the game. But the longer it went on with them being at nil, the more slightly frustrated and anxious we became in our performance and then it became a slightly stodgier affair.

"Once we got that first goal I thought we looked quite fluid, created a couple more opportunities and it could have been two and three, Shandon’s (Baptiste) shot from the edge of the box, so the first goal was really, really crucial. I think it’s going to be like that a lot this season in League One. The first goal is going to be very crucial in a lot of games so we have to keep trying to strike that balance between defensive solidity. We don’t want to be kamikaze and give away the first goal, we’ve got to be solid, but at the same time we want to attack.”