Luton skipper felt Town's lack of confidence and belief showed in Watford loss

​Town skipper Carlton Morris felt a lack of confidence from the Hatters players had a big part to play in their disappointing derby day defeat at Watford on Sunday.

The Luton fans who turned up at Vicarage Road more in hope than expectation ended up witnessing a 20th defeat out of 34 this term, as their side turned in a tame first half performance, falling 2-0 behind to Tom Dele-Bashiru’s penalty and Edo Kayembe’s tap-in. A triple change by boss Matt Bloomfield saw things improve slightly during the second period, with Izzy Jones sending a volley wide from Morris’s cross and having another effort saved by Egil Selvik in stoppage time, the only times they ever really threatened pulling one back.

Speaking to the club’s official website, summing up his side’s efforts in Hertfordshire, the Luton forward said: “In football when a team's under it as we've been, the psychological side plays a big factor. If you lose a bit of confidence, you lose the bravery to do the things that we've been doing in the past that have been successful.

"I thought we started the game well, really positively. We had the ball in good areas, getting the ball forward, we were starting to build those blocks, build that foundation of which to have a successful performance and then whatever happens leads to the penalty, it sucks the life out of us. Unfortunately psychologically when you’re in a difficult moment as a club that knocks the wind out of you a little bit, I think the boys felt that a little bit.

"They go and get another one, so it's a lot of difficult moments at the minute and unfortunately as a football club we're in a tough stage right now. We have a bit of a go for the rest of the game, but we just need to tidy up on a few bits, be better at taking on information from the staff and execute the gameplan a bit better for sure.

"Even though we do go 1-0 down sometimes, we’re good enough to create chances to get back into the game and win these games, but at the minute I just don’t think the belief is quite there and that's something we need to build back. We'll be working diligently to do so as if our end product is a bit sharper today we get one goal, we get back in it and then we make a game of it as we had the ball in good areas so many times.”

With Luton drawing yet another blank, their fifth out of eight games since Bloomfield took over and 12th of the campaign in total, it means Town are now the lowest scorers in the division, with just 31 goals from 34 completed fixtures. Morris, who is on a 10-match personal drought himself now, added: “I think an issue of ours at the minute has not been scoring when we’re on top.

"We’ve been putting in good spells in portions of the game, but we need to be better in both boxes. That’s what it comes down to. We have to score when we’re on top and take the ascendancy and when they are going forward we need to be more diligent in our defending as the game is won in both boxes. It’s irrelevant to the overall performance and we need to get that ruthless edge back.”