Jones didn't lose his cool despite Robins draw

Luton boss Nathan Jones admitted he couldn't chastise his squad too much in training this week despite seeing two points slip away in the 2-2 draw at Cheltenham last weekend.
Hatters boss Nathan JonesHatters boss Nathan Jones
Hatters boss Nathan Jones

The Hatters had victory in the bag and were top of the table too until the final minute of injury time when an error from keeper Marek Stech led to a corner from which the hosts levelled.

Speaking to the press afterwards, a passionate Jones had declared himself ‘distraught’ at the result, but on reflection, he said: “We watched the game back and the frustrating thing is, if you took the two minutes out it I’d have been delighted, I really would have.

“Going away there, it’s a difficult place to go Cheltenham, they put you under pressure, I felt we handled that comfortably all game.

“I felt we should have been up at half time, with the chances we had and looking back, they’re pretty good chances.

“Then second half they had one little half chance, we had similar chances and then getting the goal so late, you expect to go on and win the game.

“But it happens. For 94 minutes I was delighted, we’d have gone back top of the league, for one little thing, so it’s difficult to really chastise them too much.

“We’re disappointed, we learn from it, we debriefed early on Monday, put it to bed and had a good week since.”

Jones also confirmed he hadn't needed to read the riot act to his side or take any drastic measures in the aftermath either, as he continued: “It’s not like we got totally out played and we didn’t do this and we need to get on the training ground and work.

“If Marek had dived on the ball, took his time, then kicked it as far and as high as he could, then ref would have blown up and we would have been done.

“We could have done better on the corner, but they put a lot of bodies in, they had 10 bodies in the box, so it just felt to someone.

“We didn’t quite clear the first one, which we did all afternoon, so I’ve just mentioned to Marek, next time, dive on the ball and the game would have been done.

“Everything else I was pleased with. We’ve headed it, we’ve worked hard, we’ve limited them, we’ve created enough chances as the away side to have won the game and I thought we saw the game out reasonably well.

“It’s just one thing, so we’re not going to get too down, we won’t dwell on it. We put it to bed on Monday, we got them all in on Monday, some had a training session, some were relaxing and we’ve had a fine week since.”

Midfielder Luke Berry also thought it had been a positive week after such a gutting climax to the game, saying: "We were unfortunate on Saturday that we couldn’t get over the line but we’ll learn from that and try not to make that mistake ever again.

“We seem to be defensively solid as well and forward we look like we can score from pretty much every attack, you saw the other day, we got two, but we could have got a lot more.

“It did feel like a defeat as we went so long trying to get a goal and then we got it. Then last kick of the game they scored, but the good thing was we addressed it on Monday straight away, cleared the air and are concentrating on Cambridge now."