Déjà Vu struck again as Luton lost to Reading by the same scoreline for the second time this season as a late blunder by captain Kal Naismith gifted Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan his hat-trick and dealt a potentially fatal blow to the Hatters’ play-off hopes.
That was made more difficult to swallow because Town were excellent for an hour, but all three Royals goal were gift-wrapped so they only have themselves to blame.
“Nobody cares, and rightly so, because we have to win the game, and that’s that, but there was some really good stuff,” said Luton boss Jack Wilshere.
“I thought we dominated a lot, but at any level, you can’t give teams three goals and expect to get anything out of the game and that’s what happened today.
“Someone’s got a match ball and he’s walking away with a match ball and he’s touched the ball maybe four or five times and yeah, it hurts.
“It really hurts because we know the importance of this. I felt like the players did as well, but we have to be more consistent with it and we keep saying it and we keep talking about it. But, yeah, a difficult one to take.”
Unfortunately, the Hatters have been accustomed to gifting rivals goals of late, but here they did it in the fifth minute.
Isaiah Jones’ wayward back header and Naismith’s inability to deal with it provided an almost instant dampener after the joys of reaching a Wembley final in Wednesday’s Vertu Trophy victory – but the reaction was superb.
A Kasey Palmer-inspired half eventually earned a deserved equaliser in added time from Nigel Lonwijk. He scored at Reading earlier in the season too.
Though keeper Josh Keeley was required to pull of three fabulous saves before the Dutchman pounced on Emilio Lawrence’s cross, and Jordan Clark had clipped the crossbar, the leveller came at the right time.
And the hosts emerged from the break in dominant mood. George Saville’s 53rd minute header put them in front and if the game ended soon after that, the Hatters would have been applauded off.
But Palmer was withdrawn on 78 minutes when Reading had already wrestled back some control – without truly threatening – and it all went to pot. Again. In much in the same way it did at the Select Car Leasing Stadium earlier in December.
But, rather than as a result of sparkling play from Reading, Luton were the architects of their own downfall. Again.
Punished in passing around at the back, Joe Johnson’s pass was cut out, Matt Ritchie stood the ball up to the back stick – which is proving Luton’s Kryptonite – and Ehibhatiomhan could not miss. That was bad but it would get worse – and quickly.
Three disastrous minutes later Naismith’s heavy touch from a pass back saw Ritchie pick his pocket and put it on a plate for Ehibhatiomhan. The striker will not score an easier hat-trick in his career. In fact, tghe Royal has only scored six league goals this term and four of them have been against the Hatters.
The defeat was made worse by the fact that next week’s opponents Wycombe, who had crept into the final play-off place in midweek, were 2-0 up against Bolton with two minutes to play and lost 3-2.
Yet again, when other teams hold open the door for them, or even slightly ajar, the Hatters fail to take the invite to the promotion party.
But Luton’s promotion push wasn’t killed by that. It has been suffocated by a habitual proclivity for conceding cheap goals, a winless streak on the road that stretches back five months, and now an inability to win at home when on top against a play-off chasing rival.
This was, however, the most spectacular of those failings. What should have been applause returned to boos.
The midweek joys of reaching a Wembley, was built-up before kick-off as a galvanising factor, for the remainder of the league season. It may now be their entire season.
“That’s why it hurts,” Wilshere said when asked about the manner of defeat, adding: “It doesn’t take away that we had a really positive week before today, that we had some good conversations with the fans. We showed a real good performance on Wednesday and an important match. And that’s probably then why I think we get the performance we did for 80 minutes [against Reading].
“But it doesn’t matter. We can’t keep sitting here saying, ‘that was good, this was good, that was good,’ because, ultimately, it doesn’t matter. And then when you give the game away, it hurts even more.”
Promotion is certainly not mathematically out of the question, though Luton are eight points off the pace, albeit with a game in hand. And the manager hasn’t declared on Town’s number one target either, but they’re now five games without a win so, realistically, the Vertu Trophy looks increasingly likely that it is all Luton have to play for.
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