Jones felt first half tennis ball protest affected his side although also labelled Luton's defending 'inept' during City loss

Reaction from Hatters chief to St Andrew's defeat
Luton's players clear the tennis balls off the pitch at St Andrew'sLuton's players clear the tennis balls off the pitch at St Andrew's
Luton's players clear the tennis balls off the pitch at St Andrew's

Luton boss Nathan Jones felt his side turned in an ‘inept’ performance during their 3-0 defeat at Birmingham City this afternoon, although also thought the first half protest from home supporters played its part in their five game unbeaten run being unceremoniously ended.

After a positive start to the contest, with the Hatters looking the more likely of the two sides, creating some half chances and winning a number of decent free kicks and corners, they had quietened a largely sedate home crowd.

However, the match was then halted around the 15-minute mark when the Blues supporters threw tennis balls on to the pitch from the stands as they continue to protest against the club's board who they have labelled 'faceless owners.’

To make matters worse, Luton then saw a promising attack through Elijah Adebayo halted when a steward bizarrely stepped on to the field of play to try and pick up one of the leftover balls, almost getting close enough to tackle Town's top scorer.

Once play restarted for a second time, the visitors fell behind a few minutes later, Gary Gardner's cross not properly cleared, Lyle Taylor teeing up Juninho Bacuna to score.

When asked if he thought the incident affected his team, Jones said: “That’s what I felt, and then the steward's stepped on the pitch, but protests are protests.

“We can’t do anything about that, we can't affect that, we needed to adjust, but it did seem to kill our momentum and then shift it.

"But if we defend the box better, because it was only once we really had to do that first half, and then we come in half time, there’s no real problem.

"It's a difficult game because the way the wind was and the way the pitch was, it was never going to be a classic, so credit to the Birmingham fans there, they've done well.

“I thought we were really on the front foot, we must have had six, seven corners or free kicks, we really put pressure on them and maybe a bit more quality.

"The pitch was really lively, so it's difficult to display any real quality because of the swirling wind and it being a firm pitch.

"But it killed our momentum, then with the tennis balls and when the steward came on the pitch inexplicably.

"From there on, they had one opportunity in the first half, it wasn’t really an opportunity, we didn't defend well enough and that was that.”

Despite only trailing 1-0 at the break, Luton still had every chance of coming back in the second half, but those hopes were dashed immediately, Henri Lansbury diverting a pass into the path of Taylor who went clean through to beat James Shea.

Onel Hernandez rolled home a third late on, as the Blues subjected Town to their worst defeat on the road this season, as they had done on home soil too, with a 5-0 triumph at Kenilworth Road back in August.

Jones continued: "We’ve set our stall up to come out really aggressive second half and in 15 seconds you’re 2-0 down and it’s game over.

"We were never ever going to score two goals today and I’m very reluctant to not give Birmingham credit because they must have done something right.

"But we really were inept in terms of our performance and that's not been us, we’ve been really proactive in recent weeks, we’ve had a great run, but today we’ve been poor.

"We’ve saved our two most inept performances for Birmingham.

"They were better than us at home, today, they haven’t had to work hard for anything really.

"Apart from the first 20-odd minutes and when the tennis balls came on we were excellent, but apart from that we’ve not defended our box well which we’ve been very good at lately and that was the tale today."

Asked for his thoughts on the first half incident, Blues boss Lee Bowyer added: "We scored not long after and I think the goal changed the game.

"They started better than us, we were finding our feet, then we got the first goal and went on from there, grew in confidence the more the game went on."