Graeme Jones hinted at finding full back reinforcements in the January transfer window after some half time ‘home truths’ during the 3-0 defeat at Bristol City yesterday .
Town have now conceded the first goal in 20 of their 25 Championship games and yesterday they fell behind as early as the fourth minute from a cross, which the manager had warned his men about beforehand.
With the scoreline doubled by the interval, Jones swapped right back Luke Bolton for Martin Cranie, after the young Manchester City loanee was ruthlessly exposed by Niclas Eliasson.
“We told a few home truths at half time, let one or two people know and made a substitution,” said Jones.
“It was nice to have Martin on the pitch because he’s got that experience of 400 games in the Championship, that composure, that control, but he fights his corner.
“I saw him one-v-one in the box on a header late on and he’s the one who gets his head on it and it goes out for a corner, but it’s just enough.
“We’ve been missing that for a long time. At Luton, I think everybody knows, with the greatest respect, we need our best players fit. We started the game with four missing today and you can’t do that.
“Look at West Ham without Fabianski and they’ve struggled all season. We’ve had four now not fit for maybe two months and it has caught up with us.
“But we need to go again. Nobody is going to help us or feel sorry for us. We’ve got a big game in three days’ time against Millwall and we need to fight our corner more than ever there, then we need to see what the January window can bring.
“I’ve spoken the lads downstairs and we’ve had a long, honest conversation. The group is honest and maybe we’re a bit short at times at the minute, but we’ve got an honest group of players who, today, couldn’t raise a gallop, couldn’t fight their corner.
“We put an awful lot into the Fulham game and I think you have to assess it. It’s not good enough, I’m not happy with it. You stand there and you feel like you’re not competing, for a while, certainly the first 15 minutes.
“After that, we had a right go but it wasn’t enough. At Luton Town you have to start the game well and we didn’t.”
The loss was Luton’s eighth in succession on the road and Jones admitted: “Away from home we’ve not been great. I don’t think we’ve found a formula. We’re still searching for it.
“The 4-2-3-1 helped us but Bristol City played with a front four today and we couldn’t cope with a back four and a defensive midfield player, so I had to change it early on.
“There’s lots of reasons. We all have to take responsibility, I’ve said that to the lads. Me, the staff, the players, we’re not here blaming people, we know it’s not good enough.
“We have to start games better than that, have more fight than that and hopefully that’ll get us results.”
