Nathan Jones is not worried by Luton’s three-game barren run on the road ahead of the trip to the Riverside Stadium this evening, as they aim to arrest that against a Middlesbrough side that has lost just once at home in the Championship this term.
Town’s last goal on their travels was scored by George Moncur, just over a month ago at Huddersfield in a 1-1 draw, though the Hatters boss says that performances in the last two away days – a stalemate against Coventry and a 2-0 reverse at Swansea – have merited more.
“It doesn’t concern me,” said Jones when asked of the recent goalless run, adding: “The Cardiff (4-0) performance concerned me, if I’m honest, because of the level of performance. Against Swansea, we were excellent and should’ve scored a clear-cut chance.
“I thought we were excellent at Coventry. It wasn’t a swashbuckling, fluent performance, but it was a real good Championship solid performance, where you go away from home and pick up something.
“Then, coupled with a home win, it makes it a good week. We want to score goals, but we don’t play any more defensively away from home than we do at home.
“Last year, we probably had a better away record than we did at home, so it’s just strange times.
“What you have to do is keep that performance level high and then, ultimately, you get what you deserve.
“We want to be in the mould of our Swansea or Coventry performance, rather than our Cardiff one, because at Cardiff we didn’t turn up and didn’t compete and that’s not us, because we are a very competitive side.”
Tonight they face a Boro side that has the third best home record in the Championship, behind Watford and Bournemouth, with just one defeat in nine, though they only sit two league places and one point higher than the Hatters, in 10th position.
But Town can take heart from a 1-0 win at the Riverside last season and last weekend when they emphatically despatched a Preston North End side with the best away record in the division, courtesy of an unanswered hat-trick from James Collins.
“It’s the Championship,” said Jones, adding: “You have no idea what’s going to happen from game to game, it’s so difficult. Preston had a poor home record, beat Middlesbrough, then with the best away record, we happened to beat them.
“It’s only early in the season, so it’s not like we’re 35/36 games into season, so it’s just one of those things.
“It will be a difficult game, whatever their record, wherever they are. Even if they were going through a terrible time at home, it would be such a difficult game, so that fact that they’ve got a good home record, just makes it harder.
“We’re in good form ourselves. We believe we should have a greater haul and some of those would’ve been away performances, so it will be a very interesting game and we look forward to the challenge.”
