Hatters boss got the answers he was looking for when reviewing Hull defeat

Luton boss Graeme Jones confirmed he got the answers he was looking for when reviewing Saturday’s 3-0 defeat at home to Hull City over the weekend.
Town boss Graeme JonesTown boss Graeme Jones
Town boss Graeme Jones

Speaking straight after the game, the Town chief revealed he was going to head home immediate to watch the match once more and find out just what led to his side conceding twice in the closing stages to give the scoreline a far more flattering look in favour of the visitors.

When asked if he had learnt from the detailed analysis, Jones said: “Yes, but that’s for between me and the players, as we’ve had a meeting now.

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“The biggest one is we didn’t capitalise on our possession, I’ll give you that now for free.

“The rest is private, there’s more detail in that, I’m not going to tell our opposition what they are, we need to work at it and be better.

“I don’t want to say too much as it’s giving other people a message.

"We were in the ascendancy at the weekend but we didn’t take the large slice of possession we had and the limited chances we had, we didn’t turn that into goals.

"So that was the major lesson taken from the game.”

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Jones took the players through some choice footage from the game as well to show them both where they were caught short and what they had done well on the day.

He continued: “It’s my choice of clips, I don’t take them through a 95 minute game, that would take them too long.

"There’s clips that I’ve found that are really, really important and define what happened in the game.

"So positive and negative, we showed them both, but I can assure you, speak to any of the players, it’s honesty, it’s straight from the hip and it’s no lies.

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"I'm not trying to cover anything up, I believe in honest feedback, because it’s the only way you learn.

"We all make mistakes, only a fool makes the same mistake twice, so I’ve tried to be as honest as I can with the group.

"They’ve accepted it and we'll try and move forward and put it right, it’s as simple as that really.”

During his post match press conference, Jones had stated that he might have to look at how much work his side were doing ahead of the game, to see if that was a factor in their jaded second half display.

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He said: "It’s not about how fit the players are, they’re fit, really fit.

"Maybe we’re over-working, maybe we’re doing too much work tactically and when you get beat like that you have to assess everything.

"I think up until their first goal, I was happy with our display, I was happy with our reaction.

"If we stop the game at 87 minutes, it’s 1-0, the game goes longer, and I’m not talking through fitness, I’m talking about going to work from your position, being resilient, being tough, when you’re tired, making sure that you look after your area of the pitch.

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"So it wasn’t just fitness where we couldn’t sustain it, technically we couldn’t sustain it either, so that’s something we need to look at."

Having had a chance to look back at the physical data from the game though, something that plays a huge role for most modern day managers, Jones added: "You always have a subjective opinion and the stats are objective facts that help support your subjective opinion.

"The physical stats were quite high, so I was delighted with that, it means the application, the effort of the players was there.

"It was a hot day and I just think that we didn’t take our opportunities in the large slice of possession that we had in the game.

"It was 60/40 overall, and then it came back to haunt us a little bit."