Nathan Jones has defended his decisions in the 1-1 draw against Millwall amid what he feels has been an unbalanced amount of scrutiny over substitutions and the Hatters’ game management.
Town looked on course for a victory, courtesy of full debutant Elijah Adebayo’s maiden strike for the club, but a last-gasp George Evans header saw the Lions snatch a point deep into injury time.
Jones withdrew the impressive Joe Morrell on 64 minutes, because the Wales international had not started a league game since December 8, replacing him with Glen Rea.
For similar reasons, Tom Ince made way for Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu 11 minutes later, while Luke Berry, James Collins and Harry Cornick all came on in the 84th minute.
But some fans on social media criticised the changes and Town trying to run down the clock by taking the ball to Millwall’s corner flag.
“Apart from the odd bit of abuse I get, I don’t actually know anything about social media because I don’t go on it. It’s probably a dangerous thing for me to do,” said Jones.
“What happened was, there was two minutes of extra time that shouldn’t have been played. Because, regardless of whatever anyone says, there wasn’t time wasting. It was a team seeing out the game.
“I’ve watched the game back and I’m very honest. I was a bit flabbergasted by some of the comments. So, when I’ve looked at it back I don’t see that. I don’t see what we could’ve done a hell of a lot different.
“(Perhaps) show more quality and taken the second goal, but it was a good performance from us and I’m very pleased with that.”
Talking about his five substitutions, Jones added: “It’s been so scrutinised this last couple of days. The final bit, we made positive changes, I didn’t bring another defender on, we changed Joe Morrell round about 70 minutes because he hasn’t played much minutes
“They were going direct, so they were going to bypass that which was the natural one for Glen Rea, then we must made positive changes, put on two strikers to stretch the play, get us up, to provide a threat, and we were seeing the game out on problems.
“(Simon) Sluga did not have a save to make, we saw the game out. Six minutes came from absolutely nowhere as there’s no way there should have been six minutes, absolutely no way, and we saw the game out, not a problem.
“So, we could go for it, and maybe we can go for it, but if you really go for it and you go gung-ho and you conceded, people think, ‘how naive are you to go for it?’.
“So we were seeing the game out like every other team in world football, maybe apart from Man City and Barcelona does, and it’s a shame we didn’t.”
Despite admitting immediately afterwards that he felt “sick” over Millwall’s late goal, Jones cut a more positive figure today, having assessed the performance.
He said: “I thought we were brave, thought we had a really good control of the game, the only really (Millwall) threat was maybe counter attack.
“Then, late on you know what’s going to happen when you come up against Millwall. If Matt Smith comes on, there’s only one way they’re going, so I thought we handled that really, really well.
“It was a really encouraging performance, we moved the ball, controlled the ball, had enough chances to have won the game.
“Jordan Clark had a real good chance first half, Elijah has a great opportunity second half to seal the game and we created enough to have won the game, but we didn’t and that’s the issue, otherwise it would have been a fantastic, fantastic evening.
“We’re over it. It was a good performance. We’ve spoken to the players and we’re really positive. It’s a bit of a punch on the nose, but we’re over it.
“We’ve got to learn from those things but, performance-wise, we were excellent. Really brave, really wanted to play and created enough to have got ahead, but didn’t show the necessary quality to get the second goal, which would’ve probably killed the game, but there was a real level of control in the game that was so pleasing.
“Let’s not forget, Millwall are a good side. They’re a difficult side to play against, and they’ll get in your face. They haven’t lost many games.
“We showed real good quality and that’s a credit to Gary Rowett for getting something out of the game. That shows he’s a good manager but, for me, apart from about 25 seconds, I thought it was an outstanding performance against a tough side.”
Well his comments have further backfired. A game that wasn’t must win became it. And now with one of the worst 45 mins of a season of several poor 45 mins, he’s half a game away from at least a fair chunk of people calling for his head.
This is a continuation of the last 20 plus stoppage time. Clueless play.
Get in! Keep it up!
Gen Rea after his Stoke performance…really?
We would rather we go gun ho as you say and concede than try defend and also concede as its happened more than once so we would understand that we need that 2nd goal. Not rocket science.
Sorry Nathan, you’re a top manager but you’re having a nightmare. Why on earth did you bring on your old faithful for the last 20 mins while there was a great team already on? They would have won that game. You lost us two points. Start seeing that your team selection is wrong, stop making excuses, start managing, look at players statistics and do the best for our club, your personal issues with certain players are showing. YOU are to blame for Millwall 100%.. you are to blame.
Maybe some aren’t fully supporting NJ. I’ve not seen much of that though. But I’m not on social media other than to check the team. Personally as someone who is spending an absolute fortune on 2 diamond season tickets and then all the Saturday away games (cos the clubs all agreed to a rubbish deal with the EFL) I’m comfortable with the level of backing I’m giving during this time. Especially for so few goals and such little fun on tv with no mates and boring football.
It’s also not poorly expressed to point out we started to run down the clock from the 70th minute either. That’s when Cornick and Moncur should have come on to stretch the game with fast counter attacking rather than what happened – run the ball into the corner and waste time. The last 8-10 minutes were the result of falling off from the 70th minute. NJ can try and ignore that. But that’s what happend.
Jones has just done what many a manager has done unsuccessfully. Don’t pick a fight with the fans. Leave them to argue amongst themselves. And remember, they’ll always be here. No manager will be (he’s already in his 3rd spell in his Luton life). A better approach would have been a one liner “I don’t agree but we move on”. Not a long winded ramble that doesn’t close it down and if anything makes it worse.
A good summary of the match from the Manager. He made wholesale changes following a miserable performance against Stoke. It paid off. Luton looked good throughout the match. His logic for the subs is reasonable. We were unlucky not to take all three points.thats the way it goes at times. The fans criticism is merely poorly expressed frustration. NJ deserves our full support.
I’m very much pro NJ, but that doesn’t preclude my disagreeing with him when I think he’s wrong. And to dismiss fans’ criticism as ‘merely poorly expressed frustration’ is arrogant in the extreme.
NJ is a good manager, but he is not infallible. Jim’s concluding paragraph is spot on. The best place to respond to the fans’ concerns will be on the field on Saturday.