Matt Bloomfield says he understands the severity of Luton’s relegation fears, but warned that last night’s 1-1 draw against basement rivals Plymouth will not decide their Championship fate.
Town took the lead through Jacob Brown’s 55th minute header but conceded a leveller to Maksym Talovierov headed in for a Pilgrims side that had only scored five goals on their winless travels this term.
For the second successive game, the Hatters created big chances but this time Lasse Nordås, Elijah Adebayo and Brown missed them, which made this result agains the team directly above Luton in the league table feel more like two points dropped and left them rooted to the bottom of the division, two points from safety with just 13 games remaining.
“I think we have to be cautious not to build it up into something,” said Bloomfield afterwards, adding: “Nothing was going to be decided tonight. Of course we wanted to win. The performance showed that. My disappointment and our disappointment at not winning shows that.
“But at the same time, there’s still games to play that we have to attack. So, I understand the severity of the situation we’re in, of course, I do. I understand where we are. And we believe we will improve and we have to believe that. And we do believe that.
“And on the balance of the two performances that we’ve shown Saturday, tonight, I think the evidence is there that things will improve.”
The draw stretched Bloomfield’s winless start to his Hatters tenure to seven games and he said: “[I’m] disappointed. Really disappointed. I wanted to do it as soon as possible. Of course, I’m really disappointed that hasn’t come my way. I think that a number of the games could have done.
“Preston in the first game, absolutely could have gone our way. We’ve gone ahead twice at Oxford and not held out. and both Saturday and tonight could have gone our way. They haven’t.
“And we have to be honest with ourselves about the situation, I understand it, I don’t like it. But we have to be positive and keep focusing on getting that first victory.”
Luton’s goalscoring prospects were not helped by captain Carlton Morris waking up ill yesterday morning, which meant Nordås was handed his full debut. On the whole, he impressed and it was the Norwegian’s headed knockdown that set up Brown for the opening goal.
That at least ended the club record run of four home games without scoring, but the Hatters could have scored at least three more, and it’s proving a problem at present.
“That’s the magic question, isn’t it?” said Bloomfield when asked how he can help his side turn chances into goals.
“Keep practicing, keep believing, keep getting on the end of it. Keep showing the character to be willing to miss, because, the minute we start shirking away from it and not be willing to get on the end of them, we have a problem.
“So, keep creating them and keep getting on the end of them and if we do that, then hopefully someone catches some form between now and the end of the season.
“Games are decided on goals and we need to put the ball in the back of the net. We understand that. But at the same time, I’m not going to criticise anyone for missing opportunities because I don’t believe that will help them scoring them, moving forward.
“Confidence and belief and the psychological side of the game is crucial. We’ve all watched the two games that we’ve sat and watched and stood and watched for the Saturday and Tuesday. We can all see that the lads are playing with an energy and intensity and a desire and creating multiple opportunities, and our focus has to go and keep doing that.”
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