Luton boss blast defending as he reveals Town were 'decimated' by sickness bug ahead of Hornets defeat

Luton boss Nathan Jones revealed his side were left ‘decimated’ by a sickness bug ahead of their 4-0 defeat against Watford this afternoon.

The Town chief made three changes to his side for the contest at Vicarage Road, with Dan Potts, Harry Cornick and Fred Onyedinma missing out from the 1-0 win at Norwich in midweek, while Henri Lansbury wasn’t on the bench either.

Jones admitted afterwards that both Potts and Lansbury would have started, but were unable to due an illness picked up on the morning of the game, meaning he had to change the team late on.

He also confirmed that captain Sonny Bradley started despite suffering as well, the skipper replaced at half time by Gabe Osho, after he had struggled to contain Keinan Davis, with Town already 2-0 behind courtesy of some below-par defending.

The second period saw Watford add two more goals to their tally to complete a woeful 90 minutes for the visitors, who also had Osho sent off late on for a poor challenge, as Jones said: “It’s a disappointing afternoon and we realise that.

“Congratulations to Watford, kind of apology to the fans as I didn’t want them to go through that today.

“They stuck with us, they were brilliant, so we’re really disappointed we let them down today, but we’ve been on a wonderful run of form and today there was real context, a sickness bug has decimated us.

“We lost Henri Lansbury, we lost Dan Potts, we lost (Luke) Berry, even though they were on the bench, they weren’t in the dug-out, they were on a bed in the changing room.

“We lost Sonny Bradley but he had to play and its gone through the team, so there’s real context, but our defence today was something we haven’t done.

“The last two goals were balls we turned over in our own half, we've only done that once in six years and we've done that twice more today, so it’s really out of character for us today that type of performance.”

Going into more detail on just how his side had been hit ahead of kick-off, Jones continued: “Literally this morning, we lost Henri Lansbury, he woke up this morning and we had to change the team as three of them went down with it, but we didn't have enough to fill the bench.

“We need full energy to come here today and we weren’t and that’s not an excuse, we congratulate Watford and they've just caught us on a really bad day and we just have to rectify that.

“He (Bradley) had no energy, he’d been sick, I had to name them (Potts and Berry) on the bench as otherwise it looks like I've named five subs and then we look weak.

“Dan Potts for the full duration of the game was on a bed in the changing room, it may have looked like we had a full squad but we didn't.

“We lost Fred, we lost Henri, so it really costly day for us.”

Although bitterly disappointed to be beaten in a game that the Hatters had placed so much importance on, Jones didn’t want to lose sight of just how good his side have been in recent weeks, adding: “It was a really frustrating afternoon and then everything seemed to be compounded today.

“We started really badly, didn’t defend well the first two or three minutes that settles them down because they're probably under a little bit of pressure.

“They bounced back, they'll be happy, but let's not lose perspective.

“We've been on a wonderful run, we've had a great week, the last four games we’ve been three away to West Brom, Norwich and Watford which are three ex-Premer League sides.

“We’ve stayed unbeaten in three of the four games and beat QPR at home, so we're not in the worst position, it's just today hurts because of who it is and the manner of it.”