Hatters face a 'test of character' according to Cranie

Town’s 3-0 defeat at Reading last weekend was their fourth in a row and fifth from six matches.

It was one of their poorest displays of the campaign too, barely threatening the Royals goal all afternoon, but despite that, Cranie was remaining upbeat about his side’s chances this term.

He said: “When you get into a run of four defeats on the bounce, it’s tough to come back from.

“But it’s going to be a test of character for the lads now.

“There’s no point us coming in with our heads down, we’ve got to get on with it, we’ve got 30 games left in this league.

“It’s not done by a long way, so we need to go back to training, work hard and get ready for the next game.

“Everyone’s down, course they are, we’ve just been beaten four games on the bounce and we know we’ve got a lot of hard work to do.

“It’s never nice to get beat, but we know we need to change things and change things quickly.

“There’s a lot of time to turn things round, the group of lads are determined to get things right, so we’ll be starting with the Leeds game next.

“We’ll have a look at the (Reading) game in the next couple of days and then we’ll have to put that to bed, as we can’t dwell on what’s happened.

“We can only look forward to what’s coming, it’s Leeds next, so it doesn’t get any easier.

“It’s a big game and we’ve got to be ready, mentally, physically and that’s what we can do in the next couple of weeks to get things right.”

Cranie was involved in a battle at the other end of the division last season, part of the Sheffield United team who won promotion to the Premier League.

However, he knew that Town were always going to face a fight to avoid the drop, saying: “It was never going to be easy, I don’t think any lads thought that coming into this league.

“They’ve been very successful over the last couple of years, but they were made well aware how hard this league is and at the minute we’re on a bad run of form.

“But things can turn around very quickly, you can quite easily pick a couple of wins up and move a few places up the table.

“I know we’re disappointed, but we need to have a look at the game, move on and get ready for the next one.

“We’ve played well in games, been in a lot of games, as I can’t remember too many games when we’ve been out of it by half time.

“There’s a lot of games left, we just need to get our heads down, work hard, believe in each other and we’ll be all right.”

When asked how manager Graeme Jones had been with the side after the Madejski Stadium display, Cranie added: “He’s very disappointed, he knows what this group of lads are capable of and that’s not what we showed by any stretch.

“He knows we’ve got a lot to do in the next two weeks.

“He’s the kind of manager who puts a lot of things in detail and I think we’ll go over everything and get ready for Leeds.”