No sulking for Naismith as he urges Town to put Preston defeat right against Middlesbrough

Town defender Kal Naismith has urged his team-mates not to sulk following Saturday's 2-0 defeat to Preston North End and bounce back when Middlesbrough travel to Kenilworth Road this evening.

The Hatters were nowhere near their best at Deepdale, tamely surrendering their five game unbeaten run against a Lilywhites side who had been struggling going into the contest.

Naismith is now eying tonight’s fixture against Boro, who sit just one place below Luton in 11th, as a chance to rectify those mistakes, as he said: “That’s the good thing about football you can always go and put it right and it was said in there (dressing room), you can’t get too down.

“Look where we are in the league, look what we’ve done and it’s credit to the fans and the players and everybody at the club, being together, that’s why we are where we are.

“We’ll lose again this year, 100 per cent, but you don’t sulk, you pick yourself back up.

"It's a massive game Tuesday, at home where we’ve been really strong, we need to stick together, fans and players, and let’s go.

“I’m not saying we need to go and we need to win the game, of course that’s what we want to do, but be more ourselves.

"Energetic, front-foot, second balls and all that stuff we've been good at, that’s what we’ll look to put right on Tuesday.”

Naismith did feel it had been an improved second half performance at Deepdale, as they came close to pulling one back through Admiral Muskwe and Cameron Jerome, before the defender himself had a deflected effort superbly saved by keeper Daniel Iversen late on.

He continued: “I think that was the positive thing, we weren’t quite flowing, you could see that.

"We weren’t quite flowing second half either, not passing, but we were continually pushing forward, the deflection, the goalie’s made a great save.

"We’ve started the second half brilliantly, pressure, played like we play, long throws in the box, it just didn’t quite fall to one of us, or we were just not reading it the way we usually read it, or not on the front foot the way we usually are, one of the two.

"It’s a good result for them, you’ve got to respect them, we were fifth in the league for a reason as we’re always together.

"We’ve had bad defeats this year, Birmingham, this isn’t quite as bad as that, but we’re where we are for a reason as the fans, the players, everyone’s together.

"We’ll be together after this, we’ve got another massive game on Tuesday.

On the threats of MIddlesbrough, who are managed by the vastly experienced Neil Warnock, and themselves lost a three game winning run when beaten 2-0 at home by Birmingham on Saturday, Naismith added: “It will be tough game, that’s all you can say.

“Again you need to be at it, eight, nine, 10 players at it, so the boys will know that and we’ll get ready.”