Hatters boss calls for Luton to defend with more 'intelligence' after conceding 17 on the road already

Hatters boss Rob Edwards has called on his team to defend with more ‘intelligence’ and cut out the basic errors that has led to their terrible run of form away from Kenilworth Road this term.

After the first three games outside of Bedfordshire saw just two goals scored in total, Luton taking four points from nine, with clean sheets in a 1-0 win at Millwall plus a goalless draw with Portsmouth, while their only defeat was by a single goal at Preston. Since then though, it has all gone wrong, Luton beaten at Plymouth, Sheffield United, Coventry, Middlesbrough and Leeds United, conceding 16 goals in that time, none worse than a 5-1 drubbing at the Riverside earlier this month.

Having shipped 17 goals already, just one less than Town conceded all season on the road when the were last in this division, asked why he thinks they have been so easy to breach, Edwards said: “It’s not just the defence, the second goal the other night (at Leeds) was a set-piece so it’s everyone’s responsibility.

“It’s a team thing, not just the defenders. A lot of our problems the other night and the reasons we conceded the first goal and then one or two chances in the first half was because were probably just a bit too keen to get pressure on the ball at the wrong moment which in turn brought someone else out of the next line and in turn emptied the last line as well, which Leeds are really good at exposing that. So we’ve got to play with a little bit more intelligence and a little bit more thought and a bit more awareness of what’s going on around us.

“There were one or two the other night who were a bit too focused on what’s going on there (in front) and stepping into that and then not being aware of what’s going on around and behind. So we need to have a little bit more awareness, make some better decisions, but that has got to be as a team, not just as a defensive unit.

“There were some good performances in the back-line, I thought Macca (Mark McGuinness) did well, it was good to have Amari’i (Bell) back as well, but we’ve got to make sure that as a team we make better decisions without the ball and that is all linked. With the ball as well, as too many times we turned it over too quickly and then you’re defending again, so all over the pitch, better decision making, some better game-management.

"We seem to be able to at home now, really all season long, we've done that relatively well. We’ve lost a couple of games, but you could argue they shouldn't have been so we had that at home. We need to find that away as we can do it. We’ve been doing it here (Kenilworth Road), we need to do that away from home.”

Questioned as to whether it was a case of the players not understanding just how they are meant to be playing the system that Edwards has in place, the boss continued: “I don’t want to put all of this on players, we’ve got to be able to now find the right answers and that right balance, but we’ve allowed one or two knocks to then affect us, which we can’t allow. That wasn’t necessarily the case the other night, we stood up after being knocked after the early-ish goal, so that’s one thing, but the players understand what we’ve got to do.

"We’ve been punished with ultimately some basic errors too often and we can highlight a lot, especially away from home, goals we’ve conceded where there’s been from players that we expect a high level of and good players, too many basic errors. Whether that’s someone switched off from a set-piece or whether someone’s not got the covering distances right, not tracked the runner. These are things that the players are aware of, they can do, they do it consistently at home. We need to show that away from home as well now but it’s a collective.”

With Luton’s players able to grind out results at home recently, beating Cardiff and Hull 1-0, on whether they have been affected mentally by such a string of poor results on their travels, Edwards added: “I hadn’t been thinking about it too much until recently where we’ve had Cov and Middlesbrough which were tough ones and the other night was a really tough game. It was always going to be Leeds away from home, I’m not reading too much into it although there was stuff we got wrong and we’ve got to improve on.

“It’s not affected us at home, but what we need to show is some character and belief and the ones that go over that white line, they have to show that, there’s no doubt about that, so we can’t allow it to affect us. Human nature sometimes there’s always doubt and confidence plays a part and all those sorts of things, but we only find that stuff, the belief, the confidence from working extremely hard, committing to the plan, carrying it out, making as little errors as possible and finding the result that way.

"We’re not going to find that result away from home, especially going to Norwich, if we make mistakes and don’t carry out the plan that we want that we’ve all agreed on.”