Lions boss felt Millwall were the better side during defeat to Luton

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Harris disappointed by the manner in which his team were breached

Millwall manager Neil Harris felt his Lions side had been the better team during their 1-0 defeat at the hands of Luton on Saturday.

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The hosts had gone into the game on the back of a 3-0 victory over Sheffield Wednesday ahead of the international break, but fell behind when Hatters defender Teden Mengi curled a beautiful shot into the corner of the net with 10 minutes gone. Town might have extended their lead in the opening period, Tahith Chong denied by the post, with Mengi’s attempt repelled by home stopper Lukas Jensen, Jordan Clark also shooting straight at the keeper.

After the break, Liam Walsh fired too close to the Danish number after Chong had dummied Clark’s low cross as Millwall didn’t send too much at visiting keeper Thomas Kaminski until the the closing stages, the Belgian international getting a crucial boot on Macaulay Langstaff’s effort when the forward was sent clean through. Aidomo Emakhu volleyed into the side-netting, as Kaminski then kept out Shaun Hutchinson’s stoppage time header to ensure Luton picked up a first league win of the season.

Speaking to the South London Press afterwards, a frustrated Harris said: “We had 27 touches in the opponent’s penalty area. Where do I start? Lots of positives: We gave them the utmost respect, as always when a team comes out of the Premier League, but I thought we were the better team. The press was really good, the application and desire was there. There was some real quality in our play. We went direct but also played with quality around the outside and through the thirds.

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“What was missing was the final end product, wasn’t it? That’s the difference, unfortunately, at all levels of football. It was the difference today. I was slightly disappointed with the manner of the goal. I thought we could have done more to keep the ball out of the net for the goal. That’s probably where I’m really going with, questioning do we defend our goal well enough?

"I’m probably really questioning the mentality to defend our goal. That’s the disappointment. Have we got that real hunger and desire and aggressive horrible nature to do it? Well, we did against Sheffield Wednesday and we did against Hull. But we didn’t against Watford or Bristol City, so why did we not have that again today with the same starting XI? I’ve reminded them in the changing room after the game in no uncertain terms. And they’ll certainly be reminded of that all week going into Saturday.”

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