Town midfielder felt 'complacency' crept into Luton's poor first half display against Blackpool

Hatters midfielder Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu was critical of his side’s opening first half display during their 3-1 win against struggling Blackpool on Monday as he felt the complacency they are guarding against, had crept into their game.

The hosts were below par in the opening 45 minutes, boss Rob Edwards admitting afterwards he hadn’t been happy with what was on offer from his side.

They paid the price by conceding to a 28th minute header from Andy Lyons, before Mpanzu himself drew his side level on the stroke of half time.

Top scorer Carlton Morris then put Luton in front with 72 minutes gone, Mpanzu crashing home a third to secure the points shortly afterwards.

The result was enough to see Town head into the final five games of the season in third place and with a nine point gap to sixth, now look odds-on to better their position from last season.

Speaking afterwards, Mpanzu said: “Every season we’ve got stronger, a stronger unit.

“We’re playing well, we’re third in the league, and right now, it seems like nothing can stop us.

“The only thing that can stop us is ourselves, i.e. the first half today, so we’ve got to eradicate that and to make sure we’re on point every single game as Rob said, complacency is going to beat us and I think we had that first half.

“Three points are what we need at this time of the season.

"We know first half was not us, we played poorly, didn’t move the ball well, slow, conceded a set-piece goal even though we’ve been good from set-pieces all season.

“Second half that’s how we play, we moved the ball quickly, and eventually got the three points, so happy with the second half performance but first half we can do better.

“We turned it around and scored three goals, three points is what we need and three points is what we’re going to get, hopefully on Saturday.”

The fact that Luton were able to go into the break on level terms was something that Mpanzu felt was vital, as he added: “Before the goal we were not moving the ball well at all.

“It was tough when they get their goal and they’re going to sit in.

"Thankfully we got a goal before half time which opened up for the second half, but we can’t start games like that if we want to do something this season.

“They had a mid-block, so they let our centre backs have it and we need to find a way, pass round them, through them.

"We just were quite slow with the ball, movement wasn’t great off the ball, and even the quality into the front.

"We’re not going to blame the weather conditions, they weren’t great, balls into the front weren’t great, we adjusted second half and you can see we played a lot better.”