Luton chief 'glad' Jerome's strike was disallowed against Bournemouth as Hatters triumphed without any talking points

Hatters boss Nathan Jones was glad that Cameron Jerome’s controversial goal was chalked off against Bournemouth on Saturday, meaning there was no doubting the validity of his side’s 3-2 victory.

With Luton 1-0 up and pressing for a second, it looked like they had managed to double their lead on 36 minutes when Jerome was on hand to turn home following some pinball in the box after James Bree’s corner.

The goal was initially given by official Leigh Doughty, only for the Cherries players and backroom staff to immediately swarm around the referee’s assistant, complaining that Jerome was offside.

Although it appeared the experienced attacker was being played onside by Cherries midfielder Emiliano Marcondes, on second viewing, he had strayed fractionally ahead of the last man, while with the final touch coming off team-mate Elijah Adebayo, then the strike was correctly ruled out.

However, with no VAR in the Championship, there was no way the officials could have checked, and with no flag raised, plus Doughty pointing to the centre circle, it took a good minute until the goal was eventually disallowed, Bournemouth's vociferous complaints appearing to sway their judgement.

It didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, Allan Campbell blasting home from 20 yards just a few minutes later, before a pulsating second half which saw Kal Naismith bring the house down with his injury time winner, as speaking afterwards, Jones said: “I’m glad it was chalked off, because then we would have had a talking point.

"They cancelled it, fine, but then we scored near enough straight after, so that means if they hadn’t have disallowed the goal, Allan Campbell wouldn’t have scored, because the chain of events would have been different.

"The fact we had a 2-0 lead and both legitimate goals was fine by me, so no problem.”

Going into more detail about what happened during the time between the goal being awarded and then disallowed, Jones continued: “What the confusion was, was who the ball came off.

"They thought Cameron Jerome was offside, the linesman thought he was offside, but they didn’t know who it came off.

"We thought it came off their player and we still think it came off their player, but Cameron was two inches offside, so that decision was right.

"Once they conferred, then they came to that decision.

"Now we can moan, we can have a groan, but I’m glad it was, and that Allan scored a perfectly legitimate goal, so we’re not sat saying, 'were you fortunate, do you feel like you should have had a goal,' it doesn’t make a difference, I’m happy.

“The referee and the linesman have come to that decision coupled by a lot of pressure from Bournemouth, staff, players and everything, we haven’t got VAR, so we couldn’t get pure clarity.

“He’d given the goal, absolutely given the goal, and then there was a furore that he was offside.

"That happens, so you always fear then, but to be fair, the referee apart from that, he had a good game.

"He could have given a penalty right at the end (for a foul on Adebayo), but we scored from the ball that was headed out, as it was a pen.”