Sonny Bradley believes Luton’s current plight is more mental than physical after they prepped for Bristol City’s crossing prowess only to fall foul of one in the fourth minute.
Right back Luke Bolton was beaten out wide by Niclas Eliasson and then left back James Bree was bullied to the ball by Marley Watkins who headed in.
Town went on to concede twice more to lose 3-0, but the damage was done in that early passage as the couldn’t replicate the performance levels they reached on Boxing Day against Fulham.
“I don’t think it’s a physical problem,” said captain Bradley, adding: “It’s more the mental aspects of the game, how we start the game.
“Bolts is one of the quickest players in this division, so he’s got to work harder to stop the cross. James Bree is a brilliant defender, so he’s got to be ruthless with his marking and not let his man score.
“That’s nothing to do with our physicality, that’s a mental thing. The manager’s touched on that.”
Bolton was substituted at half time after he was given a torrid time by Eliasson and, asked what he could do to help as the skipper and a senior player, Bradley said: “If they are young full backs, you’ve got to help them along and you’ve got to do what you can to help them out.
“In certain situations, they’re going to get dragged out, one-on-one and, from then, it’s their responsibility to defend and to defend well.
“Through the majority of the game, they do do it well but at the minute it just seems that every cross that does come in, it seems to, somehow, end up in the back of our net. It’s just the way it’s going for us at the minute. Only we can change that and that’s what we plan on doing.”
Luton have conceded the first goal in 20 of their 25 Championship outings and Bradley knows that has to change.
“How we’ve decided to start the (Bristol) game is not acceptable and, in this division, you can’t ger away with it.
“We knew what was going to happen. The ball was going to go wide and come in our box. We’ve worked on it, done a lot of meetings and gone through a lot and within three minutes, for that to happen, the ball comes into the box too easily and it’s a one-on-one header at the back stick.
“All of a sudden, we’ve allowed ourselves to be punched square in the face. It’s not the way you want to start a fight. It’s not the way you want to start a game and, all of sudden, Bristol’s tails are up.
“They’re playing with more confidence and we have to change our shape because something wasn’t right, so we changed to a three at the back.
“The second goal, there’s a question mark whether it was a penalty or not. The referee was quite late to give it and it’s 2-0 at half time and the game seems to be miles away from us. I think we played better in the second half but it’s still 1-0 in the second half as well.”
