Jones insists strikers are still 'finding their feet' at Championship level

Luton boss Nathan Jones insists his forwards are still finding their feet at Championship level after drawing yet another blank on the road at Brentford last night.

The Hatters’ failure to find the net was the seventh time from 13 away games so far this term in which they have been blunted, managing just six goals on the road so far

No Luton attacker has scored away from Kenilworth Road since Kazenga LuaLua found the net in stoppage time against Reading on Boxing Day, while the last out and out striker to hit the target was James Collins on November 4 in the 1-0 win at Rotherham some seven matches ago.

Town's strikeforce have netted goals for fun in the lower leagues, Collins in particular prolific, but despite scoring 14 times in his debut campaign in the Championship last term, he has just six from 22 appearances this term, including one hat-trick, with only two coming on the road, and is now without a goal in seven games.

Harry Cornick, who missed a great chance to equalise against the Bees, hasn’t been able to replicate his efforts from last season when he bagged nine strikes, withouth a goal since the 1-1 draw at Leeds on June 30, some 26 matches ago now.

Meanwhile, Danny Hylton is yet to score at this level, although has mainly been used as a substitute, with just five of his 13 games coming from the start, while on-loan MK Dons attacker Sam Nombe has been restricted to a mere 75 minutes in the Championship since arriving.

On why they have found it so hard in front of goal this term, Jones said: “It’s a different level, you don’t get the time and at times (in the lower leagues) we would carve teams open, get in behind them, square it and we’d have tap ins, we’d have two strikers on the pitch, we would dominate them, so they were always coming.

“We’re not at that level yet, we’re finding our feet at Championship level, but we’re getting there.

“It’s difficult at this level.

"We’ve been used to being high scorers, but they’ve (Brentford) paid a lot of money for their front man (Ivan Toney), and a lot of money for their attacking players and they get goals, so that’s the disappointing thing from my point of view.

“Some of our build up play was wonderful and excellent, we know at Championship level we want that.

"We had enough opportunities to get something out of the game but we didn’t take them.

"They've shown the one bit of quality in the game and scored and it’s won them the game.

"They’ll be delighted with that because second half they had to hang on.”

After seeing the hosts on top for the opening 25 minutes, scoring what turned out to be the only goal of the game, Luton grew into the contest, creating a handful of opportunities themselves

That was to increase after the break, with Town in the ascendancy from early on, as they should have equalised, both Cornick and Jordan Clark missing chances.

Although they were far more of a threat in the second period, Jones had wanted his side to be that way from the opening whistle, continuing: "That was the message right from the start.

"We wanted to be brave, we wanted to come here, we don’t want to be a back-footed side that just tried to nick things now, we’re not, we think we’re better than that.

"We realised they hadn’t played for a little while, on the whole I thought we were excellent.

"It’s just that start and we allowed them to come on to us, we gave the ball away too much as we weren’t up to speed.

"We were sloppy and you do that to a side like Brentford and they can hurt you.”

Having made three changes, bringing on Clark, Kazenga LuaLua and Ryan Tunnicliffe midway through the second period, Jones felt it had the desired effect in keeping the momentum with Town for the final stages of the contest.

He added: "There was a break in the play and we thought we’d get the impetus and they did.

"I thought Tunni, Clicker and Kaz did very well, I thought Harry looked a real threat up top, I was pleased with the overall performance and I’m proud of them.

"As I want us to be brave, I want us to come here and not be overawed and not be fearful and to be on the front foot and to really have a go and we did that.

"It wasn’t just having a go in terms of going long, in terms of fighting, we played with some real quality.

"Some of our play that we’ve worked on was excellent, we switched the play, we moved it, got into overloads, we delivered into the box and that’s when we’re just lacked that finishing touch and if we’d got that, it could have been a different story."