In a Championship game that deserved to end goalless, Luton still slumped to their eighth straight away defeat in the Championship after Scott Twine rocketed into Town’s top corner from 20 yards.
The game’s only moment of quality can’t have come as a surprise, as the midfielder who is, arguably, the only Robin capable of such a screamer, was left with the freedom of Ashton Gate to wind up his right peg two minutes after the interval.
Take the wonder strike out of the equation, the timing of the shot has been an all too prevalent in the whole of 2024, across two divisions, where goals just before or just after half time have killed them.
“Performance-wise, it is a step forward. But result, and that’s what is the be all and end all at the moment, is really frustrating,” said Hatters boss Rob Edwards, who marked his birthday yesterday and his 100th game in charge, with an all too familiar outcome.
The bar is decidedly low on Town’s travels because, by the time Twine struck, the Hatters had managed just one shot on target – a Jordan Clark effort comfortably saved by Max O’Leary. They managed just one more in the dying seconds and it should’ve changed the outcome.
Until then, rather than a reaction that contained any real established threat of an equaliser, Town maintained their disjointed consistency.
On the 59th minute, Tahith Chong tumbled frustratingly to the penalty box floor when well-placed and got the attention from the referee that it deserved. Nothing.
Twine had a better spot-kick shout at the other end, but that too was waved away, while City’s Sam Bell had a goal ruled out for offside.
Edwards told the BBC: “(It was a) Typical example, especially in the Championship, a real game of fine margins. Nothing in it. They stuck one in the top corner from 20 yards on the angle and we weren’t quite able to capitalise on a couple of chances that we did create and we end up losing.”
Joe Taylor, one of the few players on Luton’s depleted subs’ bench with an attacking proclivity, remained there until two minutes from the end, when he was introduced with debutant Josh Phillips. Both were involved in rare threatening moments.
While the academy graduate’s tantalising cross was not converted by Carlton Morris, Taylor was involved in a last-gasp injury-time chance that should have been.
The forward’s cross was poked into the path of an unmarked Cauley Woodrow by Morris but, with the freedom to pick his spot on the edge of the box, found the palms of O’Leary. And with that, a chance to stop the rot of away defeats went begging, seeing Luton slide from 15th to 18th in the league table, now just six points clear of relegation.
“I think a draw would have been a fair result,” said Edwards, adding: ”You look at it with your eyes, you look at all the stats, and it’s just such an even game. We did create two really good chances Carlton’s header and Cauley’s one as well, late on. We were really backing one of them to stick one in and at least we get something which we feel we deserved.
“Cauley’s one, I thought then when he’s stepping onto that on his right foot, he’s waiting for the net to bulge, but it wasn’t to be. So, yeah, really disappointed, but and it’s hard in defeat to try and come out and then be bullish, but what we have done is we step forward again. “Recently, if we conceded, we might have been affected by that. We weren’t. I thought we reacted well to going a goal down and then were a better team, there’s no doubt about that. So that was a plus.
“I thought some of the young players’ performances were a plus as well. Clearly, it’s really challenging at the moment. It’s difficult, but I thought JJ (Joe Johnson) was excellent for us today as a young player. I thought he was really good.
“A debut for Josh (Phillips) and Zack (Nelson) when he came on was a positive again. I thought Cauley affected the game well and obviously had his chance. So, there were some pluses there and we didn’t give big chances away today. We looked solid. We did.
“All in all, it was a decent away performance. Right in the game at halftime at 0-0. And then, second half, we were the better team, but obviously they’ve stuck one in the top corner and we couldn’t find that bit of quality today.”
In reality, with Woodrow’s big 96th minute chance being only Luton’s second shot on target, the end of a difficult 2024 and the start of the January transfer window cannot come soon enough.
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