Luton boss Rob Edwards hit out at some of his players for “massive” mistakes as they conceded four goals and slumped to their sixth straight away defeat with a 4-2 reverse at Norwich City.
Town took the lead through Elijah Adebayo, but shot themselves in the foot to be 2-1 down at half time through an Ante Crnac double. Jacob Brown got Luton level, but then two late goals for Emiliano Marcondes and the Championship’s top scorer Borja Sainz left the visitors with nothing but a drop to 19th in the league.
It means Town have shipped 20 goals in their last six away days and, having taken the blame for poor results in the past, Edwards refused to do so again at Carrow Road.
“Individual errors have cost us,” he said, adding: “I didn’t go over there (to fans) and apologise because that’s not on me today. These individual errors have cost us four goals. It’s absolutely ridiculous. I’m raging about it. Supporters should be as well.
“People have got to fix it quickly, otherwise they won’t play. But too many times it’s happened. Today it was so, so evident. The plan was good. There was a good performance there. We should have come away actually winning the game. But we’ve made four massive errors, individually, and it’s cost us a game of football, again.”
With a mixed bag of support and boos from travelling Town contingent, Edwards said: “The majority of fans are with us, but the ones that are angry, fine their right to be angry. I’m flipping angry as well. What do we expect? We’ve just lost the game 4-2, chucked it away. So no, I know the reaction was good. Exactly as expected. The ones (fans) that are angry, their right to be.
“The ones that are there clapping and supportive, thank you, but they won’t be happy either. I’ll go over there and I’ll acknowledge them, as I always do, but I’m not taking all of that today.
“I’m not going over there and apologising for it because some people (players) there, some of those individuals in there have cost us.”
He added: “It’s not good enough. And today wasn’t a team thing. I think that was really clear. The plan was it was good. We were aggressive, kept a a plus one on the back line as well for the majority of time, so there was a solidity there. You can see how we conceded the goals. It wasn’t a team thing. That was individual thing.”
On Crnac’s double in the first half, the manager said: “The two goals are really avoidable. I mean, the amount of times we had a chance to clear it for the first goal and then obviously we have a blatant chance to clear it for the second goal as well. It’s just head scratching stuff.”
But then to have clawed themselves back into the game through Brown there was yet more pain for the Hatters.
“We created as many big chances as they did today,” Edwards told the BBC, adding: “They’ve about six shots on target and four goals. We’ve created a lot of big chances today. We actually did on the other night (at Leeds) as well, didn’t we? But not taking enough and obviously not keeping them out of their end.”
This latest defeat comes after the 3-0 reverse at Leeds on Wednesday night and the 5-1 defeat at Middlesbrough just before the international break, where there were two weeks of speculation about whether Edwards would still be in a job.
“That day (Middlesbrough), I felt it was a bit of a capitulation and I felt really low. I don’t feel like that since, I haven’t. I re-energised myself, but I’m ready to fight and ready to dig in. But I need everyone and every one of those players to do that with me as well,” he said.
Be the first to comment