Luton boss didn't read the riot act to his Town players after Royals horror show

Luton boss Nathan Jones opted against reading the riot act to his players after they crumbled to the biggest defeat of his managerial reign and joint worst margin of defeat at Kenilworth Road in their league history when being thrashed 5-0 by Reading on Saturday.

Ivory Coast striker Yakou Meite scored four times to comprehensively end Hatters' six game unbeaten run in the Championship and Jones' own 16 match undefeated spell during his two stints in charge at Kenilworth Road.

Although labelling Town’s defending as ‘catastrophic' with Meite taking advantage of three one-on-ones to ensure Luton remained bottom of the table, five points adrift of safety with just five games to go, the boss didn't go in too hard on his players.

After a punishing schedule which saw trips to promotion-chasing Swansea and Leeds United in the seven days prior, Hatters picking up an impressive four points, Jones said: “They’ll be hurting because they're a good group, they're an honest group, but today wasn't good enough in any way.

“Errors, losing headers in our own box, which we hadn’t done before, so we’ve got to get back onto the basics, do the basics right and make sure we’re in a good frame of mind (for Barnsley tomorrow night).

“Now, how easy that’s (lifting spirits) going to be? Each individual’s different, but it’s up to me, as a manager, to lift them, and I have to.

“I could’ve gone in there (dressing room) and gone mental, which, on another day, I would have, but that wasn’t what was called for.

“We have to make sure that we prepare them well as today’s gone, we can't do anything about it any way apart from learn from it.

“It’s all about recovery and maintenance, but we’ve had two massive away journeys, let’s not forget that and let’s not be flippant with anything.

"We’ve had two massive away journeys, four-and-a-half hours to Swansea, came back and have no recovery time, go to the most difficult place in the league (Leeds), the most intense hard-working team, so we’re not robots.

"I didn’t anticipate the result like that, but I understand it as I’ve been a player and we do a lot of sports science stuff.

“Reading had the luxury today to make five changes because, being on 49 points, they needed one result to be safe, they can afford that."

Even though Town's hopes of staying in the Championship remain slim, especially as their already awful goal difference took yet another battering, Jones is hopeful that the result and performance is a one-off.

He added: “Some of the defending was something I haven’t seen from those players, since I was here in my first spell, I haven’t conceded five as a Luton manager, ever.

"I’m surprised by the scoreline and the performance is surprising, but it’s understandable.

“It hasn’t been normal, we haven’t just gone from what we’ve done to a side that concedes five as we’d only conceded two in three games and then to concede five is out of the ordinary.

“I didn’t want it to be any more. I didn’t want it to be the same as Brentford (7-0 defeat), like they had earlier on, so we had to make sure we made changes for that, but yes it’s surprising.

“It’s out of the ordinary so we have to make sure that doesn’t happen again."