Kal Naismith has called for players to “step it up” after a 2-0 defeat to Sunderland left Luton rock bottom of the Championship and facing an uphill battle to avoid relegation to League One.
With time running out and just 15 games remaining, their seventh defeat in nine games saw them become the division’s new basement boys, with Plymouth hammering Millwall 5-1 to leapfrog them.
Town’s troubles in stopping easily avoidable goals while struggling to find them net themselves was exposed again at the Stadium of Light. While affording Enzo Le Fée the freedom of Sunderland to score the first and then Lamine Fanne’s mistake teeing up Wilson Isidor, the Hatters fashioned just one effort on target, drawing a blank for the third time in new boss Matt Bloomfield’s five winless games in charge.
Asked if Town’s troubles are psychological as we as tactical, Naismith told the BBC: “It’s tough. Obviously, you can overthink and you can look down every avenue, but we know we can be better. We know we can be better. What we’re at now, we’re looking at each other and look at the quality we’ve got in the changing room. But we all need to look at each other and step it up a little bit. We’re going to do that in the coming games.”
With their season hanging in the balance, Town must find momentum and belief — and fast.
“It’s a fight. It’s a tough league and we are where we are, but we’ve got we’ve got lots to play for and we’ve got lots of games. But we know where we are, that’s the important thing. It’s easy just to say we’ll be fine, but I think as a group we know where we are and we know it’s time to go [and do it],” Naismith said.
The Hatters are now winless in nine Championship matches but despite this, Naismith believes that one victory could be the spark needed to kickstart a revival.
The 32-year-old said: “I think just that first result is so important. Let’s get that first one. Momentum’s the biggest thing in football. You see them [Sunderland], they’re full of momentum. You can see the confidence in them. And that just comes with results. That comes from picking up any sort of win, a scrappy win or a 1-0 or any sort of result and then you sort of build for there and, and it will snowball because we’re doing the right things.”
Town host second-in-the-league Sheffield United on Saturday, but Naismith said: “We’re not looking, going, ‘everybody’s better than [us]’. It’s the Championship and anyone can beat anyone. I think we’ve got to go into the game and know that it’s going to be an incredibly tough game. They’re an unbelievable side, but they need to know it’s going to be a tough game against us as well. We need to bring that, so that’s what we’ll be looking to do.”
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