Hatters boss laments conceding 'disastrous goals' during Hornets humiliation

Hatters boss Nathan Jones knew full well that Town paid the price for giving away what he described as ‘disastrous goals’ during Sunday’s 4-0 defeat at Watford.

With the visitors forced into two late changes as both Henri Lansbury and Dan Potts were out with illness, they never fully recovered from the reshuffled line-up, Keinan Davis opening the scoring after just three minutes, Luton failing to defend a cross and the on-loan Aston Villa forward outmuscling Sonny Bradley to score with a scorpion kick type volley.

They were then hit by another goal on the stroke of half-time, William Troost-Ekong netting from close range after Allan Campbell was outnumbered at the far post, Bradley and James Bree unable to prevent the ball being turned in.

It got even worse in the second period, keeper Ethan Horvath’s poor pass out picked off by Joao Pedro who easily made it 3-0 and then Tom Lockyer dispossessed late on, Ismaila Sarr curling home the fourth.

Sifting through the performance, Jones said: “The two second half goals were disastrous goals to give away and that’s the only thing I can criticise my players for as they’ve put in massive shifts.

"They’ve done some wonderful things, but today it’s been really poor.

"When we played the other day, Huddersfield and today, are two really poor elements of our defence which normally over a massive period of time, we do superbly well.

"So we have to get that out of our system, but we’ve got four, five games now to go into the international break, at least three at home, as we have to take advantage of them.

"We’ve been to some tough places, it’s been a tough month when you’ve got West Brom away, Norwich away, and to put in the shifts we’ve done, shows we’re in a good place.”

The Hatters had gone into the contest on the back of a seven game unbeaten run and possessing the joint best points return on the road in the Championship this calendar year, meaning hopes were high among supporters.

However, they never looked like extending that sequence at the one venue Town fans didn’t want to witness their heaviest defeat of the campaign, as Jones continued: “I’ll take the positives from my group, we don’t give up, we had to take one on the chin today and it’s the worst place to come to take one on the chin.

“But we’ve taken more points than any EFL team in 2022, so it shows we’re in a decent place.

"Yes it’s a hard one to take today and there'll be a lot of bitterness and a lot of anger, but we have to have a bit of perspective and make sure we don’t get carried away by this defeat and bounce back, that’s the only way we know how.”

Town weren’t without their opportunities in the first half either, Allan Campbell’s left-footed drive flying inches wide, before Luke Freeman headed at keeper Daniel Bachmann and Elijah Adebayo saw his effort land on the roof of the net with the Hornets stopper out of position.

They went close after the break as well through Gabe Osho and Carlton Morris, as Jones added: “We’ve had really good chances.

“Elijah’s chance, Gabe Osho has had a chance at the back stick, puts it over from point blank range, Carlton then has a chance middle of the goal, so there’s been chances.

“It’s just we weren’t ourselves today.

"We’re playing balls into midfield, getting robbed, where normally we’re really front-footed in what we do, so it's a really disappointing and out of character performance and result for us.

“We turned the ball over in positions where we know what they do.

"They leave four up and really can have a gamble.

"They’ve got potency, they’ve got arguably the best front four in the division in terms of the quality they have there and when you give them opportunities they take them.

"We needed to be really defensively solidly today, and that’s not us.”