Robins boss Pearson felt too many of his players were 'out of sorts' on a difficult night at Luton

Bristol City boss Nigel Pearson described it as a difficult night for his side with too many of his players ‘out of sorts’ during their 1-0 defeat at Luton Town on Wednesday evening.

Carlton Morris’s 16th goal of the season after just five minutes was enough for the Hatters to make it three straight wins, and inflict only a second defeat on the Robins in their last 13 outings.

Town could and should have been out of sight in the first half too, visiting keeper Max O’Leary repelling efforts from both Elijah Adebayo and Luke Berry, while Adebayo was denied by a goal-line clearance from Mark Sykes.

After the break, City did improve, ex-Hatter Harry Cornick testing Ethan Horvath, as did Andreas Weimann and Alex Scott, but O’Leary was also called upon to parry Morris’s header, as there was no denying who was the better side.

Pearson said: “We gave ourselves too many problems from the start.

“We didn’t start well, too many players out of sorts, made too many poor errors, and against a side like that who put you under pressure, to concede so early on, it looked like it could have been a bit of a tough night.

“We managed to get to half time intact and second half we played better.

“Max made three really good saves to keep us in the game, we've had our chances, but it was a tough night for us as we had too many players out of sorts.

“Players are going to have off days, but what we don’t want is more or less most of the team not really with a positive outlook.

“We were too negative in possession and we didn't deal with the ball particularly well in the first half.

“Second half we were much, much better, we had to change our shape just to try and impact on the game and that worked pretty well to a large extent, but you can't give your opponents the impetus to go and drive forward right from the outset, we made too many poor errors ourselves.”

On what he said to his side during the break, Pearson added: “I pointed out the obvious, it's not about being overly negative, we’ve got to try and find a way back in.

"I still think the players come out with some credit having been able to stay in a game when we’re not playing well and put our opponents on their back foot in the second half.

"We finished the game pretty strongly, their players looked dead on their feet basically.

"But a disappointing result for us, but in the contest with what happened, we can't be too upset with losing by one goal, as we had our chances in the second half, no doubt about that.”