Hatters midfielder disappointed that Luton aren't learning their lessons by conceding similar goals every week

Town midfielder Jordan Clark insists he and his team-mates will put the work in on the training ground to ensure they stop making the same defensive mistakes that has blighted their progress in recent weeks.

The Hatters are now four games without a win in the Championship after a 2-1 defeat to Cardiff City on Saturday, having gone from a side sitting in the play-off places, to 15th place, some seven points away from the top six.

Their latest defeat at the weekend saw both of the Bluebirds strikes coming from crosses into the box being met by unmarked headers from Rubin Colwill and Sean Morrison, continuing a worrying theme for the hosts who have now conceded five of their last six goals in such a manner.

Clark knows that going forwards, they have to stamp such mistakes out, saying: “It was a tough game, tough conditions and disappointing to give sloppy goals away, it's similar goals every week now.

“We’re addressing it every week, that’s the worst thing and obviously we’re not learning from it.

“Something’s got to change, we’ve got to go back to basics, keep clean sheets as a team and work even harder in training, that’s all we can do.

“It’s always a concern (four game winless streak), it’s an old cliche, but we’ve just got to back to basics and work hard in training, that’s all you can do.

"We’ll watch the video, learn where we can get better, but the concerning thing is the goals are identical every week, which is not good.

"It's not just a defence thing, it’s an 11 thing, we’ve got to defend from the front, then win the battle in midfield, which we probably didn’t in the first half and then stop giving chances away, stop crosses and mark players in the box, so they’re not getting an easy header.

"We’ll address it next week, I know the manager and the staff will probably watch the game two or three times, then we’ll watch it Monday morning and debrief the game.”

As boss Nathan Jones eluded to in his post match interviews, he was frustrated by the way in which side are conceding goals, particularly when they are arriving from the opposition's only efforts on target, with Town unable to replicate that feat at the other end themselves.

It was a cause of annoyance to Clark as well too, as he continued: “Teams are having two chances a game and scoring two goals, we’re having nine, 10 chances and maybe score one or two.

"You can’t keep conceding two goals every game, especially in the Championship, you have a mountain to climb and it’s tough at any level.

"We’ve just got to go back to basics, start defending well, start defending a lot better as a team and we need to start winning games.”

The former Accrington winger was one of five changes made by Jones for the contest, but it didn't boost the hosts as they struggled massively in the first half, trailing 1-0 and unable to send anything meaningful at the Welsh side's goal.

They improved after the break, Clark himself restoring parity just after the hour mark from close range, only for Morrison to escape the attentions of the Town defence with 13 remaining to win it.

Clark added: "We probably lost a lot of battles first half, we wanted to up the tempo and get the crowd behind us and I don’t think we really did that to be honest.

"It was disappointing, the conditions were harder for us first half, but we’ve got to be brave, get on the ball, and when the wind's high you’ve got to keep it on the floor which we didn’t.

"So a disappointing first half, second half I thought we started all right, we got the goal which was a great cut back from Elijah and obviously I thought we were in control for 10-15 minutes.

"It ended up turning into a basketball game though and we were all over the place.

"They were getting in behind, could have scored a couple more goals, we had a couple of chances as well, so it's just disappointing.

"We’ve just got to cut out the mistakes, start defending better and start scoring more goals which has let us down in the last few weeks."