Hatters boss believes Owls clean sheet proves Luton won't be bullied by a big man

Luton boss Nathan Jones highlighted his side’s third clean sheet of the season at Hillsborough on Saturday proved his side can manage going up against a big man this season.

Town had struggled during midweek with the threat of Millwall forward Matt Smith, the imposing striker getting the better of the visiting defence to play a big part in the opening goal, his header turned in by defender Martin Cranie.

With Luton facing the threat of 6ft 5in on-loan Cardiff City defender Aden Flint at times on Saturday, particularly from set-pieces, they managed to keep him out during the 90 minutes to leave Hillsborough without being breached.

Jones said: “The clean sheet was really important and I thought we defended our box superbly well against an aerial threat.

"Because if people play big men and there's not many bigger than Smith and bigger than Flint, so we had to show that we can’t get bullied as if Flint started dominating, then people just think 'hang on, just play a big man against those.'

"But we’ve nullified that today and Smith will cause every team problems if you get enough quality into him.

"But I thought Sonny (Bradley) really stood up, the back four stood up, and I thought we were excellent.”

Town had gone into the game on the back of successive defeats, and although it was by no means crisis time at Kenilworth Road, having enjoyed an impressive start to the campaign, with three wins from four, Jones was desperate for his side to half the run of losses.

He added: "What I’m really delighted about is when we’ve had three out of four (defeats) and a tough week as going to Millwall is a tough, tough game and we didn’t deserve anything.

"We deserved more from Stoke I felt, but when we don’t get that you’re thinking you’ve got to stop the slide a little bit, and we did that.

"Now that sets us up with a different mentality going into two home games, where we want to capitalise on that.

"We’re in a decent place on 12 points, a wonderful start, we’d have taken that all day longm but I don’t want us to rest on our laurels, I want us to push boundaries, I want us to keep being hungry.

"It was a chalk and cheese performance from Tuesday night and I’m pleased with that, because we needed that.

"We know we’re going to have certain elements where we get turned over at times, because this is one hell of a league, as I keep saying, it’s the fifth, sixth best league in the world.

"So we know at times we’re going to have a tough week now and again, but it’s how we react, how we come back, how we react as fans, how we react as staff, how the players react and then to get back on track.

"I thought we did that today and there was a load of good performances out there.”