Town defender Lockyer eager to apologise to the Hatters fans for the manner of Hornets loss

Hatters defender Tom Lockyer was eager to apologise profusely to the Hatters travelling fans after their 4-0 defeat at fierce rivals Watford this afternoon.

With the Hatters supporters waiting over 16 years to attend a derby day clash at Vicarage Road, it soon turned into a nightmare for those who made the trip, Keinan Davis opening the scoring after just three minutes.

William Troost-Ekong then added a second on the stroke of half time, taking advantage of some poor defending, as the Hornets added two more after the break, Joao Pedro and Ismaila Sarr capitalising on further errors in the visitors’ back-line.

Speaking afterwards, Lockyer said: “First and foremost, apologies to the fans.

"We know that one hurts, it hurts for us and it’s going to be a tough one to take for them and us.

“The important thing is now we move forward and we take that hurt into the next game.

“We’ve got a week now to work on it.

"It would be lovely if we could see as many fans as we can down at the open day on Tuesday and apologise in person and say thankyou to all the ones who stayed singing and stayed to the end.

“We really appreciate that and hopefully they can be with us now when we try and go on another run that we've just been on.”

After the game, Town boss Nathan Jones revealed that he had to make two changes on the morning of the clash with Henri Lansbury and Dan Potts both missing out with illness.

Lockyer admitted it made things tougher for his side, but didn’t want to blame the duo’s absence for the visitors’ disappointing defending on the day.

He added: “It was mad, everything was all right last night and then we wake up this morning and it’s an early kick off as well and we’ve got people dropping like flies.

"For me, I said before the game, ‘come on lads, it’s going to be a backs against the wall job today.’

"I don’t think you give yourself a platform when you concede that early on.

"The idea was to get into half time at 0-0, that would have been perfect and then kick on from there, but wasn’t meant to be, so this one hurts, but if we can on another run now that would be perfect.

“Neither of the goals were affected by that (players missing out), so that’s no excuse really.

“Everyone who comes in knows their jobs, you’ve just got to roll with the punches.

"It’s going to be tough for the fans going into work with all their mates and getting ribbed, I’ve been there, it’s a horrible feeling.

"So apologies to them and thankyou to those who stayed right behind us.”