Jones knows Town must address their defensive form at Kenilworth Road

Hatters boss Nathan Jones is more than aware that Town’s defensive record at home needs to be addressed and addressed quickly if they are to be a force to be reckoned with once more in the Championship this season.

Tuesday night’s 3-3 draw against Huddersfield Town, in which all three of the visitors goals came from set-pieces, means Luton have conceded nine goals in their seven home matches so far, keeping just two clean sheets.

Although they have also managed two shut-outs on the road, they have been breached just four times in their five matches, and Jones knows that is something that must improve.

He said: “ We were excellent against Blackburn, defended superbly, really aggressive, but tonight (Tuesday) and Coventry, we’ve conceded five in two home games and we don’t normally do that.

“That has to be addressed and we have to be better as away from home, we go away and keep clean sheets, then at home we implode at times.

“It was very strange, if you look at our goals you think ‘wow’ and that’s the frustrating thing.

“If we literally just head the ball, all right, give them the second goal as he’s peeled off, and we give them a pen, fine.

“But the other two are really, really tough to take because they’re basic deliveries that we’ve just got to get our head on and we don’t and that’s the frustrating thing.

"Because it’s free headers, we’ve got free headers and we head it into our own net, so that’s a little bit tough to take.”

Sorba Thomas’s delivery caused the Hatters massive problems all night, as two of his corners were headed into their own net by Carlton Morris and Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu, while he also picked out team-mate Michal Helik for another effort that was handled by Dan Potts for a penalty.

Jones pointed to a change in personnel when defending set-pieces as to why his side might have been so unusually poor on the night, as he continued: “They know their jobs, it’s just we were a little bit depleted the other day in terms of Carlton’s not normally in the middle zone, it’s normally Reece Burke or another centre half.

"But because we had three centre halves missing in terms of (Sonny) Bradley, Burke and (Gabe) Osho, then we had to do it.

“Then Pelly comes on and it’s his first real, proper minutes for a little while, so it’s all about rhythm.

"We’ve just been caught on a bad night, the first delivery was a great delivery, the other ones, we’ve got to be better at, because we put as good a delivery in and haven’t scored from a set-play.

“That’s the frustrating thing as we had opportunities from set-plays against a very good set-play side and we just need to be better, but we shouldn’t need to score four to win a game at home.

"If we had just done the basics, we would have won that game.

Defender Potts was also annoyed that his side looked so weak when it came to keeping the ball out of their net from dead-ball situations too, plus the fact that Town had 24 shots to their opponents three, and still only ended up coming away with a point.

He said: “It’s something that we pride ourselves on, not just this year, but over the course of many years.

"We always look at stats and where we can improve, what we can do.

"Sheez (Alan Sheehan, first team coach) takes a lot of time, so it was a real frustrating one on the night.

"When you look back at the stats as well, how many chances we created in the game, how few they did, to not come away with a win was really disappointing and it’s something we will address going into Saturday’s game.

“You’d always like to think it’s a one-off because of how well we’ve done before defensively on set-pieces, but you just can’t drop your standards, especially from set-pieces, because in this league you will get punished.

"Two own goals, there was an element of ill-fortune in it, but you still can’t concede three goals from set-pieces in this league.”

Potts, who had been making his 200th appearance on the night, also though it had be a tough call by referee Leigh Doughty to award a spot-kick against him in the first half, saying: “I thought it was harsh.

"I spoke to the referee after the game and he said it was harsh, but the rules are if you make yourself bigger and the contact is above shoulder level, which is what he said on the night, there wasn’t really much I could do.

"I was in a natural position as I jumped and unfortunately as I’ve turned it’s hit my arm, on the night it was really frustrating.”

It was the same for Jones, who didn’t feel that shout, or Luton’s one late on for a handball of their own should have been upheld, adding: “No, I didn’t think either that one or theirs was penalty really, neither one.

"I thought probably the challenge on Fred (Onyedinma) was probably the biggest scream for a penalty, but I don’t think any one of them was a pen, but interpretation.”