Hatters boss hails his finishers as he reveals players led half time chat at Cardiff

Luton boss Matt Bloomfield praised his ‘finishers’ for their efforts in getting Town what was a much-needed and incredibly precious three Championship points at Cardiff City yesterday evening, while also revealing he gave his players the chance to voice their opinions on the contest during the half time interval.

An opening 45 minutes at the Cardiff City Stadium which, bar one Liam Walsh volley that Ethan Horvath parried away, was way, way, way below the genuine quality expected from a second tier encounter, both sides barely able to string two passes together, often seeing them over-hit, going to the opposition, or straight out of play.

Despite that, Town were marginally the better side, having 15 touches in the Bluebirds’ box as opposed to the hosts’ two in theirs, meaning that unsurprisingly it was all square at the break, the main positive being that the Hatters were still in the contest, something that hadn’t been the case against Watford and Burnley recently.

Asked what he had said to his players in the changing room, Bloomfield stated: “It felt like we were very comfortable, that’s what it felt like at half time and I relayed those messages. I actually let a couple of the boys speak as I think they’ve got the answers. We’ve been working together long enough now, I let Carlton (Morris) speak, I asked them the questions, how did they feel the first half went? And they had all the answers which is so important as they’re the ones out there playing on the pitch.

"I backed it up with a couple of points of my own and off we went. The message was to keep getting to the final third but go and take one of those moments. It was unfortunate for us that we went a goal behind before we were able to really go and imprint ourselves on the second half. There were a couple of moments where we didn’t come out with seconds and gave Cardiff a couple of opportunities to put the ball in our box, but from there, we looked attacking.”

It was Calum Chambers who broke the deadlock when he saw his scuffed volley from Mark McGuinness’s clearing header bounce past an unsighted Thomas Kaminski, who complained his view was impeded by a Rovers player. However, Town did start to put the ball at risk more once they had been breached and from an Amari’i Bell advance on the left and Alfie Doughty’s deflected cross, Jordan Clark hammered a quite magnificent and quite out of keeping with what had gone before, volley into the roof of the net from 20 yards.

Just prior to that, Bloomfield had been readying a triple substitution and despite parity having been restored, went ahead with it before the contest restarted, Zack Nelson, Milli Alli and Jacob Brown coming on for Walsh, Doughty and Elijah Adebayo. With Josh Bowler also entering the fray later on to move to a wide right position once Luton had rejigged their formation, it was the on-loan Nottingham Forest winger who had a huge part to play in the winner, his shot deflecting into the path of Thelo Aasgaard who gleefully netted his first goal for the club.

Discussing his replacements, Bloomfield continued: “When the goal goes in you’re going, shall we give it five? But they were all ready, they were all pumped up and it felt like irrespective of the goal, we needed that impetus and they all came on. Zack should count himself unlucky to be left out after Saturday. I thought he was excellent, but he expended a lot of energy and I just felt it was the right thing to leave him as a finisher.

"It was that point in the game when we needed fresh energy and the boys who came off had done great and it was nice to hand on the baton to the finishers who had another good impact for us. Milli came on and had a real attacking intent, Browny who’s been excellent, his endeavour and the way he plays for the team is great, so nice for the boys to have an impact as well.”

Alli was to prove quite possibly the stand-out of the trio who came on, as replacing Doughty on the left hand side he swerved past his markers with real ease at times, dummying two Cardiff defenders before firing into the side-netting. He also had another attempt blocked away, but that kind of eye-catching cameo has given his manager some real food for thought, as Bloomfield said: “I think he’s got attacking output and it felt like at that point of the game we needed extra attacking impetus.

"He’s not a wing back as such I would suggest, but defensively, he’s more of an attacker and we wanted to have that fresh energy on the pitch. Then we did change formation twice more just to make sure we were secure in what we wanted to do, but he’s going to give you some real attacking. He gets you up the pitch, he drives with the ball, a real attacking player and I think our fans will enjoy watching him in the future for us.”

During the closing stages, Bloomfield also brought on defender Reece Burke for the final four minutes, the centre half getting his first outing since late November. He made a terrific goal-saving intervention, while Mark McGuinness and Thomas Kaminski also came to the fore in stoppage time, the Belgian international with an athletic claim to take the pressure off his team-mates.

It led the boss to say: “It’s great for Burkey, we’ve all been speaking about his return and I just wanted to get him on the pitch. He’s a big character, a big player, obviously we missed Kal (Naismith), but Macca as a leader, he’s developing all the time and I think Amari’i Bell has been excellent since we’ve gone to a back three, absolutely fantastic.

"I said afterwards, Thomas’s take, Reece coming on and hooking that one clear, they’re the big moments and as much as it’s lovely for Clicker and it’s lovely for Thelo, of course, but you get results by doing those little things well. Thomas’s take was fantastic, Burkey to come on and have a moment like that, it’s only a little one, but it’s a big one to see the game out. To come from behind, I really hope that the lads will take those moments and use them as confidence and belief to create some more.”

With Luton now having some defensive options available to them against Middlesbrough this weekend, Bloomfield added: “I think it’s good competition for places. It will rise, keep the competition high and that should in turn make performances elevated. It’s good, headaches are good for managers as that means you’ve got people fighting for shirts. That’s what we want, we want people fighting for the starting positions and that’s where we want the competition to be at. I think that’s risen in the last couple of weeks and I think the performances are rising as a result.”