James Shea admitted Luton Town’s players are “low” and “have no confidence” after their 3-1 Vertu Trophy defeat at lower league Cambridge United.
Speaking after a game where the Hatters took the lead but self destructed in the second half, the goalkeeper gave an honest and emotional reflection on the team’s fragile state, a day after Matt Bloomfield was sacked as manager.
“We started well, went 1-0 up, everything was going well, and then we just stopped playing,” said Shea. “We didn’t get tight enough, they got a foothold in the game, they get their [equalising] goal, go in at half time, regroup, come out second half and then score straight away. And then everything goes out the window really. It’s not a great night.”
The defeat came under interim boss Alex Lawless, who stepped up from the under-21s following Bloomfield’s departure on Monday, but Shea said the players’ confidence was at rock bottom regardless of who is in charge.
“You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realise the boys have got no confidence at the minute,” he told the BBC. “You can see it. It’s hard. Everything. It’s like we’re up against 13 men in every game at the minute and it’s just not nice.
“It’s good players just lacking confidence at the minute and hopefully it will change at some point.
But at the minute we’re low. It’s a depressing dressing room as you can imagine – when you don’t think it can get any worse, it does. So hopefully the only way is up but at the moment it’s pretty low.”
The 34-year-old called on senior players, like him, to lift the mood and guide the younger members of the squad through the current turmoil.
“We’ve got to help the young lads as much as we can, on the pitch and off it,” he said, adding: “. “It’s low at the minute, but we’ve got to turn it around and start that on Thursday on the training pitch and get ready for Mansfield.”
Shea also sympathised with interim boss Lawless, who was thrust into the role with little time to prepare, and said everyone was waiting for a new manager to be appointed.
“Alex has come in and set the team up tonight. It’s a shame it hasn’t gone as well as he would have liked, but we want to get the manager in as soon as possible to get working with the players, get his ideas across and hopefully get us ready for Mansfield,” said Shea, adding: “It’s terrible what’s happened. Awful.”
The goalkeeper has been at Luton since 2017 and has enjoyed the highs of three promotions from League Two to the Premier League, but recently two straight relegations back to the third third tier.
Reflecting on Luton’s wider decline, She said: “I’ve seen everything. If I’m honest, it was all going one way at one point, and then the last couple of years has just dwindled away. It’s not great at the minute.”
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