Hatters striker backs struggling Luton to come through 'tough times'

​Luton striker Jacob Brown has backed his team-mates to find a way out of the ‘tough times’ they are currently going through.

The Hatters suffered a 10th defeat of the season and sixth straight away reverse when going down a 4-2 loss at Norwich City on Saturday, a result that increased the pressure on manager Rob Edwards once more. Town had actually led through Elijah Adebayo’s goal on 20 minutes only to fall 2-1 behind by the break due to some horrific defending that allowed Ante Crnac to find the net twice.

Brown himself restored parity early in the second period, stabbing home from Shandon Baptiste’s corner, but in the closing stages, Luton’s brittle back-line fell apart far too easily, Emiliano Marcondes and Borja Sainz on target to deliver another body blow to Town’s already fragile confidence away from Kenilworth Road.

Although the Scottish international, who signed in the summer of 2023 when the Hatters were embarking on a Premier League campaign, was mystified by just how things have gone so wrong this term, he was staying optimistic about their ability to turn things around, as when asked if the belief was still there, Brown said: “Absolutely, 100 percent. As a player you’ve got to go through tough times. You’re never going to be winning every week, you have to be pushing through these times and come back stronger, so that’s what we’ve got to do.

“It is literally just the basics. I thought our shape at times was really good. To come away from home and score two goals is a positive, but it’s not going to be enough when we’re gifting easy goals away. It’s been like that for a couple of games now. We have been too easy to play against, that’s not us, it shouldn’t be us anyway.

“I don’t know how many goals it is in the last three away games, it’s clearly something that we need to be better at. We need to be more resilient, stop gifting silly goals, I know we say it a lot, but we just have to work on improving that now. When we play well and do well as a team it’s because we’re hard working, resilient and teams find it hard to break us down, but we haven’t been that recently. It’s something we are working on and have to work on, but we have to start doing it in the games when it matters.”

The only real plus point for Luton so far has been their home form, with four wins and two draws from their last seven fixtures, and they will be hoping to lean on that when entertaining Swansea City this weekend and then welcoming Stoke City to Bedfordshire on Tuesday night. On why he thinks there is such a difference at Kenilworth Road, Brown continued: “We’re confident at home, it shouldn’t be such a big difference from home and away but it is at the minute.

"Going into the home games, we’re always confident. Hopefully we can build in those two games and take that into the next away game. Naturally we have that big support and atmosphere at home which makes games a little bit easier, but we’ve been away from home in the Championship and last season and done well. It’s bad form at the minute away and something we have to work on and change quickly.”

Brown will be hoping to keep his place when the Swans are in town this weekend, especially as he notched his third goal of the campaign to remain joint second top scorer with Elijah Adebayo when finding the net at Carrow Road on Saturday. It came in the early stages of the second half when Baptiste’s set-piece fell at his feet in the box, although the forward admitted there was an element of fortune to his finish.

He said: “You’ve just got to stay alive from the corner. It was a second ball, I did miskick it but the fact it went in the back of the net is the main thing. To get back early in the second half was positive. I don’t know how it came to me, it went over my head, I turned round and then it fell to me. I scuffed it into the back of the net so I was happy to get a goal.”

Although Adebayo himself had found the net with a predatory strike to put Town 1-0 in front, Luton couldn’t make the most of some of their other opportunities, particularly when Brown fizzed in a cross that flew through the six yard box just before the break, as the Hatters’ fellow frontmen just couldn’t apply the decisive touch.

The striker added: “It was a really good finish (from Adebayo). Again the shape was good to put the pressure on to win the ball back and then we took our chance, which away from home is exactly what we needed to do, so it was really good from Eli. Then we made it hard for ourselves. We’re getting into good areas and maybe not taking those chances and then giving away easy chances, we’re making it very hard for ourselves.”