Luton boss Matt Bloomfield has urged his players to stay calm and focused as they head to Burton Albion today looking to respond to last weekend’s 1-0 home defeat against Cardiff City.
The Town manager admitted frustration after the loss, Luton’s second of the season, against a Bluebirds outfit that were relegated from the Championship with his side, but are still unbeaten in the third tier.
Bloomfield has played down talk of extra pressure after the defeat, saying: “There’s no need for us to add anything to our situation.
“We just need to keep clear minds going and perform, be the best we can possibly be. And just keep calm in the situation. There’s going to be times when we’re really flying this season, there’s going to be times where we had a punch on the nose, like we did on Saturday.
“We need to stay calm, we need to go about our work and be absolutely motivated to put our best performance out there on Saturday afternoon.”
The Hatters created chances but failed to find the finishing touch at Kenilworth Road as they managed just six shots of their 22 on target, while Bluebirds keeper Nathan Trott made a series of strong saves.
“I was pleased with the chances created, the number of chances and the amount of times we saw the posts,” he told a media conference. “There was a lot actually. Previous performances I’ve been pleased between the boxes and not so pleased in the box, and Saturday we created more chances but we were messier in other areas. So we’re always trying to slightly adjust what we’re trying to do if we see fit, and we’re always trying to improve, and that’s been no different this week.”
A lack of goals from his forwards remains a concern, with all of Town’s attackers yet to find the net, but Bloomfield backed the likes of Jerry Yates, Nahki Wells and Lasse Nordås to come good.
“The good thing is that we’re creating chances. If we weren’t creating any chances, that’d be more of a concern,” he said. “We back our players, we believe in our players and we’re looking forward to when they hit some form, but they’re performing well, they’re working really hard on the training ground. So yeah, we’re looking forward to when they get up and running.”
At the other end, some of Cardiff’s opportunities last weekend came from errors in possession, but Bloomfield insisted Luton will not change their approach.
“I think it’s been some uncharacteristic errors from players that are usually so reliable in possession of football. Some of that is just confidence or eliminating those mistakes, but at the same time, we’re trying to play a certain way, we believe in what we’re trying to do, and we won’t come away from that,” he said.
Assessing today’s opponents Burton, Bloomfield expects a stern test despite the Brewers without a win since the opening weekend of the season.
“They’ll feel really disappointed not to have got the three points at Stockport last weekend from being ahead,” he said, adding: “They’re really well organised, work extremely hard and we have to match that.”
