Honest Clark admits things are 'not right' on the road after Luton lose again

Long-serving midfielder Jordan Clark admitted that something is just ‘not right’ for the Hatters on their travels after they fell to yet another defeat away from home when being beaten 1-0 by Huddersfield Town on Tuesday night.

On the face of it, a single goal loss at a team who are in play-off contention might not have left seen the long-serving midfielder as absolutely crestfallen as he was when facing the press afterwards, but when you peel it back, it was unsurprising to see just why a player once dubbed as the ‘best free transfer’ by former boss Nathan Jones and who had passed 200 appearances recently, was so utterly dejected.

With the scores goalless and half an hour on the clock, the Terriers were reduced to 10 men when striker Alfie May was sent off for pulling the hair of visiting midfielder Kasey Palmer, as the hosts also lost fellow forward Bojan Radulovic to injury at the same time, meaning they were robbed of their two main sources of goals and gave Town over an hour to try and break their hosts down and earn a morale-boosting three points.

They hadn’t done so by the break and just three minutes into the second period, actually found themselves chasing the game from a position of perceived superiority, Ryan Ledson scored a quite unbelievable goal from just inside his own half when lobbing a back-pedalling Josh Keeley who couldn’t keep his effort out.

Although still having 40 minutes to play with, Luton never seriously looked capable of netting one, let alone the two that boss Jack Wilshere was demanding, in fact only going on to have one shot on target in that time, that coming in the 71st minute when Clark himself let fly with an effort that was easily parried away by Terriers keeper Lee Nicholls.

With no further chances of note, it meant Clark and his fellow team-mates had to once again trudge over to the travelling fans, who numbered around 500 at the Accu Stadium, with their tails between their legs, a few days after almost 800 made the trek to Plymouth Argyle, following what was a third successive 1-0 defeat on the road, and a fifth loss from six matches outside of Bedfordshire, with just a point to show for their troubles in that sequence.

It dropped them down the ninth in the League One table as Luton are now six points away from the top six which led an honest Clark, who was part of the squad that was in the Premier League just two years ago, to say: “It’s tough, but you’ve got to face it, simple as that. It’s not good enough, not good enough in just quality and finding a way to score a goal away from home, as something’s just not right away from home.

"We’ve got the structure right, we work on it all the time and everyone’s fed up of me saying it, but we just come into the game and we lack so much quality it’s unbelievable, it’s so sloppy. When they go down to 10 men you think happy days, but obviously everyone knows in football how tough it is to break them down. They put everyone behind the ball and then it’s enhanced even more with our quality, but apart from a couple of little here and there moments, it’s just not enough.

"Then they score a worldie from the halfway line, fair play, but we’re just giving them the opportunity to have the shot, a sloppy ball into the middle and we’re not ready to play it. At 1-0 it’s even harder, but I feel for everyone who’s travelling at the minute. It’s not good enough. We’ve got the home form right, something’s clicking at home and it’s working, but away from home it’s just not working.

"It’s tough, it’s tough, I feel really low at the minute, but we’ve got to come in and that’s the thing with these games at the minute, they’re coming thick and fast so you’ve got to learn from it quick and dust ourselves down and start picking up some more points otherwise we’re going to end up finishing mid-table which is what no-one wants.”

One cause of huge frustration for Luton was their lack of attacking threat when they were faced with the 10-men of the Terriers, as despite having the player advantage, if anything it was the hosts who appeared to carry more threat, particularly from set-pieces, which Clark knows can’t happen.

He continued: “Even with 10 men it looked the same as well, they were always dangerous on the counter attacks which we spoke about. It’s okay having all the ball in their final third but you’ve got to do something with it, and if you lose it, you should have enough players to manage the counter attack, recycle it and then attack again, but we didn’t do that.

"I’ll have to watch it back again, I don’t know if it’s a bit of naivety or a lack of quality when we get around their box and the end product which has been the problem in a lot of games this year which just kills us, especially away from home. We’ve found the formula, what works for us at home, but away from home it’s a bit problem and it’s something we need to address when it next comes up after these home games.”

Boss Jack Wilshere himself stated that he felt there were still some issues within the culture existing at the club that have been lingering since relegation from the Premier League almost two years ago now. Asked if he personally felt that was the case then Clark, who is one of a handful of players still at Kenilworth Road since those heady days of facing the likes of Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool, said: “It could be.

“Look what’s happened in the last two seasons, so something’s not right, but we’ve got enough quality out there and enough quality in the squad as we should be doing better than we are. It’s on us to take ownership, we’re the ones that go over that white line and play. It’s been tough for a while now, you have a little lift with a few wins, especially around Christmas but then something’s not working away from home which is the disappointing thing as the fans are travelling miles and miles which hurts a lot, as we’re not given them anything to cheer about.

"We've got to regroup and see what happens maybe in the transfer window, that’s always a funny one you don’t know who’s going to come in. We might get some more players in and players might leave and then when that shuts it’s that group of players until the end of the season. We’ve still got a lot of points to play for, especially away from home. Kenilworth Road we can use it as a fortress but when the next away game is, we’ve got to address something as it’s just not working at the minute.”

Meanwhile, another criticism that has been levelled at the current crop of players is they lack the kind of leaders that saw them fly through the leagues in the first place, reaching the top flight from League Two in double quick time. Clark added: “We’ve got a completely different group now, we haven’t got the same characters in there that we’ve had in the past four or five years since I’ve been here, so it’s always hard as we’ve got a lot of young players as well.

"It’s tough, but we’ve got enough players who have played enough games of football and we’ve got players on the bench as well. We’ve got to be a collective and drive the standards, but I’m low at the minute so it’s hard to assess it now. We’ve got to focus on the weekend now and get three points as otherwise we’re going to be drifting down the table which no-one wants and what we don’t expect at this club.”