Luton boss didn't think his substitutions were 'disastrous' during Wigan defeat

Luton boss Nathan Jones felt the substitutions he made in the second half of Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Wigan Athletics hadn’t been ‘disastrous’, despite Town eventually going on to lose the game 2-1 to their opponents.

The Hatters chief swapped five players after the break, with Cauley Woodrow, Harry Cornick, Cameron Jerome, Luke Berry and Fred Onyedinma entering the fray at various stages of the contest, Elijah Adebayo, Carlton Morris, Luke Freeman, Allan Campbell and Jordan Clark making way.

It was a move that eventually backfired though, Luton letting a 1-0 lead slip in the final 10 minutes to make it four games without a win at Kenilworth Road, as speaking in his post match press conference, Jones felt he could have done better with his decision-making both before and during the fixture.

He had initially said: “The changes I made didn’t have an impact on the game, or didn’t have a positive impact on the game.

“Normally we bring on game-changers and they really do that, but they didn’t today.

“I’ve made changes and they haven’t come off, so I’ll look at that.

“It’s a little bit baffling, but we’ll watch it, we’ll evaluate and see what we could have done as I think I could have been better in terms of changes I made prior to kick off and definitely through the game, as we finished the game wanting to win it but we ended up losing it.

"I'll look at it and maybe we could have been better as a staff.”

However, given time to reflect on the second 45 minutes, Jones didn’t think the defeat was down to the substitutions, more the attacking nature of his side in the final few moments when they should have shut up shop instead and settled for a point that would have stretched their unbeaten run to four matches.

He said: “You always look at yourself but in midweek (against Cardiff) we made real positive changes and they had instant impact, one scored and one assisted so we got our changes bang on in midweek.

“Then on Saturday I was critical of myself because I don’t like coming out and just being critical of other people, so I said I needed to look at myself.

“The changes were fine, it’s only late on that we went to try and win it that maybe we should have had more game management and probably said the minimum that happens here is we take a point.

“I felt we were that dominant that we should have won the game but apart from that, Cauley came on and played well and the other changes we made were good changes.

“Cameron Jerome had an impact and Harry Cornick had an impact.

“I don’t think they were disastrous changes, what I said was they didn’t have the impact that theirs did because they scored, like ours did in midweek.”

With Jones and the rest of the managers in the EFL being allowed five substitutions this term, Saturday was the third time the Luton boss had done so, also putting the maximum number on against Sheffield United and Bristol City.

The Town chief knows it can’t happen all the time as making wholesale changes in a match could have a detrimental impact on his side’s performance, even if it has helped clear up the Hatters’ injury problems.

He continued: “You have to be sensible as well.

"Five substitutes might disrupt the flow of the game, what we did at Swansea for example, we had two front men that gave us the maximum, then on 60 minutes we brought on really fresh ones that took the game away from them.

"That is what tactical changes are and I don’t think you can keep making them unless you’re leading, or totally out of the game.

"Making five outfield changes is tough to do because all five have to hit the ground running and they have to be tactically bang on it.

"So look, it’s a different conundrum to solve but one thing it will do is help with injuries because we’re seeing now that we’re having far less injuries because of that because we’re able to take people off at times when they are exposed to injury.”

With Luton almost having a fully fit squad to choose from now, only midfielder Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu definitely ruled out of this weekend’s trip to Stoke City, the boss knows it will make the decisions on who he puts on the bench that bit tougher, adding: “That’s a decision, we have to make sure that subs, they’ve got to be game-changers, they’ve got to be tactical.

"So for whatever scenario happens we have changes and things that can happen.

"Some days, some very, very good people miss out, it’s just the nature of the best.”