Luton let the lead slip twice to draw 2-2 against Coventry and continue their winless start to the season at Kenilworth Road. Here are our takeaways from the game.
Morris. Just, WOW!
It was silly how good Carlton Morris was in the first half. With two goals from his first two chances, we may as well start calling him The Surgeon, because that fella was clinical.
Morris rocketed a volley into the roof of the net with the force of a thousand suns and then stroked home a sublime through-ball from Harry Cornick.
But it wasn’t just those strikes in the first 15 minutes, it was his manhandling of defenders and crowd-endearing antics like plucking the ball out of the sky with velcro-like audacity, before turning away from the three bewildered City players surrounding him, before they could even blink.
He also had the nous to get in the way of keeper Ben Wilson who was looking to start a Coventry counter with Sonny Bradley stranded and out of position (more on that later).
And have you seen him jump? The man’s got Ronaldo-esque ability to hang in the air.
Even a cock-up came off, when he toe-ended a pass and it still found its way to the feet of Luke Freeman. Well, no-one’s perfect, but Morris pushed the theory to breaking point.
His performance deserved to be a match-winning one, but with five goals in five goals he’s the go-to man in this stuttering side.
Adebayo left out
In contrast to the stellar start from Morris, goalless Elijah Adebayo was dropped to the bench and had to watch as Cornick and Town’s new hero formed a promising partnership, which combined for both goals.
Left out of the starting line-up, there may now be questions of whether last term’s top marksman is compatible with this term’s hotshot.
Morris seems to think so, promising before the match with Coventry that Championship defenders don’t relish the prospect of playing against the pair.
There’s a case to say that when they’ve teamed up Adebayo has proved a foil for Morris, and he has been getting into good positions, but even once he was introduced against Coventry after the break, due to Cornick’s tight hamstring, his goalscoring touch still eluded him.
James Bree put it on a plate for the forward and he skied it, only to see the offside flag incorrectly spare his blushes.
Jones afterwards admitted that Adebayo was benched to take out of the firing line, but that his reaction to being dropped was good. So, perhaps some time providing game-changing assistance could be the way to reignite the old goalscoring flame.
Can the real Bradley and Potts please come back?
There’s no skirting around the fact that, from the first minute against Coventry, this was one of the most alarming defensive displays seen at Kenilworth Road for some time.
The pair have not been on the winning side this season when they’ve played together and so, just as it’s valid to wonder whether Morris and Adebayo is the most effective partnership, the same has to be applied in the back line.
Certainly, Potts has been a more than able deputy while Bradley has been out of the side for the last month – he was given some compassionate leave – putting in some of his best performances in seven years as a Hatter.
The former West Ham man had started to assert his place, and we’ve even been talking of him as making Kal Naismith’s old position his own, while fulfilling Jones’ predictions, that centre-half was where the former left back’s future lay.
But lining up alongside Bradley, all the assertiveness of that player disappeared, which was worrying because the skipper had already been skinned by Viktor Gyökeres. Rather that step up after that early warning sign, Potts had a hold-my-beer moment for the Swede’s equaliser, which made that early indiscretion look like a Franz Beckenbauer masterclass.
It’s understandable that Bradley may not be fully up-to-speed, but wayward passes and nerve-shredding backpasses didn’t make for a comfortable evening, though there was one vital block in the second half.
The last time the two defenders lined up together was in the disastrous team display at Bristol City, so with Tom Lockyer unfortunate to have been moved to the bench last night, it may have to be one or the other when it comes to Bradley and Potts in future. But not both.
Reffing hell!
It was really only a frustrating footnote to a disappointing performance full of mistakes all of their own making, but how the hell Luton weren’t awarded a penalty is, as Jones said an “absolute disgrace”.
You’ll have seen the footage by now. Kyle McFadzean turned into a goalkeeper to stop a Jordan Clark shot.
Everyone saw it bar referee Andy Davies. The trouble is, it’s not the first infuriating decision that has cost Town points already this term (well, if you totally take out their responsibility to defend much, much better).
Sheffield United equalised though Sander Berge was clearly offside, but this was next level officiating. And by next level I mean the seventh circle of hell. We’re all doomed if referees can’t see a defender doing a Steve Ogrizovic* impression.
*Please note: for all the younger readers, Steve Ogrizovic was a legendary Coventry keeper from the 80s and 90s, who just happened to be sitting a few seats away from me in the press box. That’s a name drop only for fans of a certain vintage.
Close cuts and curses
In other, you-might-have-missed-it (or perhaps not even thought about it) news, Henri Lansbury went old skool with his new, but old, skinhead haircut, which really served to show whether there has there ever been a yellow card that should be celebrated more than the one he picked up for berating the useless ref?
As an aside, the moment Luton’s new home kit for this season was revealed to have been inspired by a vintage kit from the 80s and 90s, it wasn’t lost on some that the original kit was possibly one, if not the unluckiest in Town’s history.
That orange shirt, then an away kit, saw the Hatters win zero games in the years that it was worn between 1989 and 1990.
In the new version, now a home strip, Town are yet to win at Kenilworth Road. For goodness sake, no-one mention the word ‘curse’…. Oh, dammit!
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