Luton boss has no complaints about comprehensive Brentford loss

Hatters chief Nathan Jones had no complaints about his side’s 3-0 defeat to Brentford this afternoon, admitting the better team won on the day.

Goals from Rico Henry and Ivan Toney put the Bees 2-0 up inside 30 minutes of the contest at Kenilworth Road, with sub Marcus Forss adding a third late in the second half.

Town tried manfully to get back into the contest, but could only test Bees keeper David Raya once, that a hopeful Kazenga LuaLua effort from range with 20 minutes to go.

Speaking afterwards, Jones said: “We tried every single thing possible, changes, tweaks here and there, but they were better than us today, I’ll make no bones about it.

“We have to remember that three years ago we were a League Two side, so we’re getting to that level, but we’re going to have days like this.

“I could go in, go mental, rant and rave, but we’re going to have days like this because we’re not quite at the level yet.

“Some, in the Premier League, that when they get beaten by Man United or Leicester, they hold their hands up.

“We have game plans and we tried to make it work and if everything goes to plan, we’ll have a good game against Brentford, but when it doesn’t we’ll get punished.

“So, we have to accept that at times.

"We’re in a decent position at the minute, we’re just above mid-table in the Championship.

"If we’re still there after ten games, that’s probably a fair position we’re in, and we’re competing well.

“These (Brentford) are years down the line of their structure, we’re not, so we’re having to get to grips with that.

“We’ve got no time to work because they haven’t trained Thursday or Friday, so it’s a difficult scenario we’re in, coupled with the fact that you can’t make many substitutions, so there’s no freshness.

“It’s just watering down the quality, but we’ve been beaten by a better side today and they’re a very good side and credit to them.

“But, that’s a learning curve for us and where we aspire to be.”

Jones made an early change during the fixture, bringing on LuaLua for centre half Matty Pearson eight minutes before the half time interval.

On why he made the switch, the manager said: We had a game-plan, letting them have one or two passes and then press, but then we had too many people behind the ball, so they were able to get it into those little pockets.

"When one of the centre halves didn’t step in and go and do that, then we had to change it and give them an extra midfield player so they could go and do that.

"It was just a tactical decision, but we know we’re going to get tactically tested at this level, especially against Brentford.

“We didn't quite get it right for the second goal, first one is a poor clearance and then you know it’s backs against the wall then.”

Although conceding the Bees were easily the better team on the day, Jones still had an element of frustration in how his side fell 2-0 behind within 30 minutes.

He added: “You have to make sure you’re structurally really good against these because they’re a very good Championship side.

“We know we’re at our maximum at this level but I’m frustrated because it (first goal) was a simple ball in the box that we should clear, we cleared it straight to them and it’s a shot that goes in the bottom corner.

“If you clear your lines you don’t concede that and then the game-plan goes, which was to keep it tight early on.

“The second goal was something that we didn’t get the press right that we’ve worked on.

“It didn’t happen, their midfield man got it, no-one went in with him, he was then able to play a long ball, which Rhys )Norrington-Davies) wasn’t able to curtail because of his injury and then they scored.

“Then the game’s pretty much dead, because if you start to come out against these and get it wrong, they can hurt you, because they’ve got a great system, real good athleticism about them and they’re good footballers that can hurt you.”