Luton skipper left stunned as Town's back-line is ripped to shreds in Barnsley debacle

Luton captain Kal Naismith admitted he and his team-mates were left stunned by the enormity of Saturday’s embarrassing 5-0 thrashing at the hands of Barnsley on Saturday.

The 33-year-old was part of a defence who arrived at Oakwell on the back of keeping three successive clean sheets for the first time since March 2023, as they had gone five unbeaten in all competitions too. Hopes were high that having triumphed 3-0 at league leaders Stockport County in their last contest on the road, also winning 1-0 at Northampton Town too, then Luton’s record outside of Bedfordshire would continue, manager Jack Wilshere even stating that his side were better suited to playing away from home at the moment, after drawing two blanks at Kenilworth Road.

Ultimately that belief was to be misplaced, as once the Hatters conceded on just seven minutes to Reyes Cleary’s lobbed finish over Josh Keeley, the hosts ran riot, scoring two more before half time and two more after the break to inflict Town’s biggest defeat outside the top two divisions since 2013 when they were hammered 5-1 by Gateshead in the Conference.

With the near enough 1,500 supporters in the away end letting the players knows just what they made of the performance, speaking afterwards, Naismith said: “I think five-nil, any time you get beaten five-nil at any club, any expectation you’ve got on yourself, you get beaten five-nil and it stuns you and hits you hard. We’ve not got an ego, we’re going to lose games, but I think any game we lose now, it’s catastrophic. It’s not that, we’ve just been five unbeaten, we’re in an incredible place, I get it, it’s how we lose.

"I know we’ve lost five-nil and that’s what sort of stings, but no-one’s seen it. Let’s be honest, we came here full of confidence in an amazing place, but that’s football, football’s got a way of just knocking you down when you think you’ve got it worked out, so we go straight back to work again doing what we’ve been doing.

“Maybe us as players, because of how good it has been (under Jack Wilshere) and how good it feels every day, being with each other and training, we probably came here with a little bit of swagger and arrogance which is what we need. I want the team to have that, but then you’ve got to do it as well. We just got a knock back, a little setback but we’ll be back.”

The worst thing for the Hatters was that all five goals were of their own doing, as Zack Nelson’s pass to Liam Walsh was cut out in midfield, allowing Cleary to be sent away to beat Keeley. It was then Keeley whose clearance was picked off by Vimal Yoganathan in the build-up to Barnsley’s second, Izzy Jones failing to cut out a cross and Patrick Kelly getting in ahead of Naismith to tap home Cleary’s cross from virtually on the goal-line.

It got worse before half time too, Walsh himself tripping Davis Keillor-Dunn just outside the box allowing Luca Connell to curl home a free kick, while after the break Gideon Kodua put through his own to make it 4-0, before Naismith couldn’t prevent Keillor-Dunn from getting past him way too easily and wrong-footing Keeley to add what was a humiliating fifth with 15 minutes still left to play. They went close to piling on even more misery, as discussing the error-strewn nature of Luton’s efforts, the captain continued: “It’s a really tough one to take, it’s hard after it to actually say anything positive, but we started the game well.

"The gameplan, you feel it when you’re on the pitch as a player, they were struggling to figure out what we were trying to do in the build-up, which was allowing us to get into their half a lot, without being creative. Of course you grow into a game away from home which we were feeling we were going to do and then you go one down, then the second goal, we go two down and then they seem energised.

"They’re a good side and we just had too many off it today, I was off it, a lot of us weren't there, which is going to happen. You’re inconsistent at times and we’ve got a young squad, but just disappointing, it’s hard to put it into words. Listen it’s a mistake, but it’s how you react to that as a whole. Trust me you can analyse every game, you can analyse the Premier League games, there’s mistakes everywhere but it might not lead to a goal, so then it doesn’t get spoken about.

"Everybody makes mistakes, I think the first one, young Zack is incredible on the ball, he gives the ball away on the halfway line, it’s not his fault, they then go and score, we can do better after that. It’s how you react to that moment, we’re a team. Listen, mistakes happen for individuals, but the goal, we’ll always concede goals as a team. We win games as a team, we stick together and that’s how it is.”

One thing that shocked those travelling fans in attendance at the Tykes was the alarming ease in which Luton were breached, considering they went into the match with the most clean sheets in the league, having picked up eight this term. Worryingly, they have now20 in their eight other matches, 14 or those coming on the road, as Naismith, who was in a left-sided centre back role once more, was keen to defend the visitors’ back-line, adding: “It got undone, but the defence is really tight.

"We’ve got the most clean sheets in the league, five unbeaten, we’ve been great and that’s not down to the defence and Josh, that’s down to us as a whole, how hard we work as a group. We’ve come away and we’ve fallen short of where we’ve been recently, we took giant strides from where we were, we’ve been incredible.

"When teams go one or two-nil up, they turn into a different team, there’s more energy and we just deflated a little bit. It’s disappointing and it feels like everything’s going to them, every little flick is going to one of their players. It’s hard to analyse straight after it, but we just fell short. Listen we’ve got a young squad, there’ll be other times this season when we lose, but it’s how we lose.

"We just conceded too many today and that’s the disappointing thing. They’re a good side and they will score a lot of goals here at home but we fell below out standards and fell short. We’re a young side, that’s going to happen again this season, and guess what, we’ll bounce back, we’ve just been five unbeaten so let’s get back on that.

"I’ve been so proud of the boys to come from where we’ve been to where we are now. Trust me, we’ve come so far, the staff have come in and just been incredible. It’s probably been too much on the up and sometimes football’s got a good way of humbling you, so I think that’s what’s happened today, but we’ve got a lot of character in there and we’ll bounce back.”