On-loan Villa defender admits it's mentally tough fighting for Championship survival with Luton

On-loan Town defender James Bree has admitted that battling for Championship survival is proving mentally tough for the Hatters players.

Luton missed a glorious opportunity to climb out of the bottom three on Tuesday night, held to a 1-1 draw with QPR, their third draw out of four matches at Kenilworth Road since the season resumed last month.

As against Barnsley in their previous home game, Luton led 1-0 at half-time, but were pegged back in the second period. although this time, Dominic Ball's leveller came far earlier than the Tyles' gut-wrenching equaliser had done.

On why Town have found it hard to hold on to a lead on home soil, Bree said: “I think it’s happened a couple of times since lockdown where we’ve got that early goal and we keep telling ourselves, ‘keep pressing on, get that next goal.’

“With the situation we’ve put ourselves in, sometimes it’s mentally tough to get on the ball and keep pushing forward when we know we’ve got something to defend against.

“With a couple of players they’ve got like Eze (Eberechi) in the 10, it's tough to defend for a full 45 minutes against a team like that.

“I think we did well, we still created lots of chances and still should have won the game, but that’s just how it goes.

"It’s another point towards safety and lets see what we can do.”

The R's leveller, when it came, was initially from a Luton attack on the left which broke down, allowing the visitors to counter through the lightning pace and trickery of Bright Osayi-Samuel.

Bree felt he could have done more to prevent the move from starting off though, adding: "I’ve played against him (Osayi-Samuel) a couple of times, I think he was at Blackpool and then he’s got his move here, he’s got real pace, he’s got a trick and he did well for the goal.

"I should have taken Eze out on the half way (line) and given away a foul, but that’s just how football goes sometimes."

After Luton started their mini-season six points adrift of safety, with an awful goal difference, they are now just two points behind fourth bottom Charlton, who conceded a stoppage time equaliser in Wednesday night's 1-1 draw at Birmingham City.

Bree felt that despite the slip-ups at home, the squad have coped well with the battle to stay up, saying: “There’s pressure, but I think the lads are handling it really well.

"We’ve shown that with the results that we’ve got since we’ve come back and everyone’s really coming together.

"Everyone’s got the same goal, everyone wants to stay up and it’s just the little things we need to change.

"We change those draws into three points and we could be out of this situation by now.

"I think we’re doing really well and going into Saturday it’s a huge game against Hull, get the three points there and see what happens.”