Luton chief won't be panicking after Cardiff drubbing

Luton chief Nathan Jones won’t be panicking after his side’s heaviest defeat of the season at the weekend, hammered 4-0 at Cardiff City, ahead of tonight's home clash against Championship front-runners Norwich City.

The visitors struggled to cope in Wales on Saturday, conceding two goals in the opening nine minutes, with another two following after the break, as the Bluebirds simply overpowered their opponents.

Although Luton dropped to 15th in the table after last night’s results, they are still nine points clear of the relegation zone, and in a far better place than at this stage last term.

Heading into this evening's contest with an in-form Canaries, Jones said: “What you can’t do is panic, we’re in a relatively decent position, what we can’t do is let our early season form go, and the form we’ve been in.

“We only lost once last month, it’s just we’ve drawn games that we shouldn’t have in terms of the Birmingham game.

“It hasn’t been a bad haul, if we’d have just got what we deserved in the Birmingham game, it would have been a good month.

"Yes, we’re going to get the odd result where we get punished as we’re at a level that can do that to you, and we know that we have to be at our absolute maximum, we can’t get away with that, while some teams will get away with it as they have a certain level of player.

"Bournemouth were two down at half time the other day (against Reading and won 4-2), if we’re two down, it’s very difficult to come back from, without being disrespectful to us.

“Bournemouth have spent 100 million on strikers and front men, so they can afford to do that, we can’t.

"So when we have an off day, we know we’re going to get punished, so what we have to do is be at our maximum, so we have more good days then bad.”

Having watched back the defeat to Cardiff on Saturday, Jones felt his side were on the wrong end of some refereeing decisions, but wasn’t about to blame them for such a disappointing showing.

He continued: “We were nowhere near the levels we needed to be.

“The ironic thing is we had so much possession and were structurally right up until the final third, we were actually good, but we didn’t do the basics well enough.

“Arguably, there’s questions marks over three of their four goals, but on the day you don’t notice.

"It’s a foul on Glen (Rea) for Kieffer Moore’s goal, there’s an offside as well, arguably Sonny (Bradley) was bumped over, but we just didn't defend well.

"There could have been slight little arguments over stuff, but we were nowhere near the levels we should have been in the basics of the game, winning your tackles, defending your box, going with runners, all those things that we’ve been good at, we forgot about on the weekend, totally forgot about.

"And it was in a game that I knew that was going to be so important, the players had been told beforehand what kind of game this was going to be.”

One slightly worrying aspect for Luton was the ease at which they were dominated aerially by the Bluebirds, particularly from set-pieces throughout the afternoon.

When asked if he felt it was an issue that needed looking at, Jones added: "It's probably only Millwall and Cardiff that we have looked vulnerable really and they’re two sides with big sides, aggression and they are well drilled on that.

"Our marking wasn’t good, the manner in which we conceded the set-plays wasn’t good, but all over we weren’t ourselves and no matter how they scored, we gave two goals away in the first nine minutes in the Championship, so you know your backs are against the wall.

"We were no where near. A neat, tidy, a nice team, easy on the eye but no killer instinct about us at the weekend and that is something we need to rectify."