Jones explains why he didn't make earlier substitutions during QPR defeat

Danny Hylton and Luke Berry were introduced with seven minutes to go against QPR on Tuesday night

Luton boss Nathan Jones has explained his reasons for not making his substitutions earlier during the 2-0 defeat to QPR on Tuesday night.

With the Hatters producing a well below par opening 45 minutes, trailing to Charlie Austin’s close range header, and not really showing too many signs of getting back into the contest after the break following James Collins’ miss, it took Jones until 13 minutes remaining to make his first change, introducing striker Sam Nombe for defender Dan Potts.

The Town chief then made a triple switch with seven to go, bringing on Danny Hylton, George Moncur and Luke Berry, but when asked why he didn’t opt to make his changes earlier, Jones said: “You can do lots of stuff and I evaluate it.

"We could have made substitutions earlier, when we changed shape, we could have made a substitute after 20-odd minutes, but if you make a substitution every time something’s not quite going right then you never come through anything.

“Now we've made gamechangers here and they've had a massive impact.

"The end of last season was huge, this year we've had real good impetus, but we did make substitutions and there's alway something you can look at, could have you have done better? Could you have done this?

“I had as many attacking players on the pitch as I could have, but sometimes that doesn't really do it.

“You can work on a game-plan, and you work on a game-plan with 11 players and you don't let them implement that or you change too quickly then how is anyone going to get any rhythm?

“I was a caller and I think that’s come up on social media, I was a caller for more subs but more subs means that you don't have to force anyone to go through a pain barrier that can cause them injuries, that’s what is.

"It doesn't necessarily mean that you make five substitutions for the sake of it.”