Premier League? You’re having a laugh on the evidence of this poor performance at Preston North End as Luton whimpered to a first Championship defeat in six.
While Town’s new Power Court stadium moved a step closer in the week, with chief executive Gary Sweet promising a top-flight future, the Hatters looked bereft of the quality to fire them there at the earliest opportunity.
In all fairness, the Town supremo didn’t provide a timescale for their path to the Premier League, though, at the time they sat fifth in the division. That hope, that it could be at the end of this season, was all too fleeting.
But, despite that anticipation, at Deepdale they started poorly, finished badly and the less said about the middle the better. The result saw Luton slip quickly out from the play-off places, back down to 10th.
“We haven’t had a performance like that for a little bit, but it brings us back down to earth a little bit,” said manager Nathan Jones, who has also made no bones about the club’s Premier League ambitions.
“You’d have thought that being fifth in the league with a real chance of establishing ourselves there, that we would’ve been right at it today, but we weren’t. It’s a little bit of wake-up call. It doesn’t do you harm sometimes, but as long as that doesn’t continue.”
The problem is that there never looked any other outcome than a descent back to mid-table, even before North End top scorer Emil Riis rocketed an opener past Simon Sluga from a ridiculously acute angle on 27 minutes. The Croatian should’ve done better.
But despite their ineptitude, with no forward cohesion, a seeming inability to pass to each other and a midfield completely bullied, Town were seconds away from being able to regroup at the interval. That was until captain Sonny Bradley launched into the clumsiest of challenges, cutting down Ali McCann in the penalty area and allowing the Lilywhites’ scorer to double his tally from the spot. It was a a killer blow.
The skipper and Glen Rea were then given the hook at the break and for five minutes Luton looked to rally with substitute Admiral Muskwe forcing a save from Daniel Iversen, while Cameron Jerome saw a header cleared off the line. That was as close as they’d come to a fightback.
The latter was the replacement for top scorer Elijah Adebayo, who limped off at half time in last weekend’s 1-0 win over Hull. Town haven’t looked the same since – 135 minutes and counting – and that is a problem, with the striker’s hamstring issue ruling him out of the squad.
Jones said: “We didn’t really look like scoring today. I’ve got to be honest, we didn’t do the basics well enough.
“There was nothing in the game and then, on the edge of the box, we try to clear it, we don’t, we try to be clever – which happened three, four, five times today – they rob it and I don’t think he (Riis) means to score from there but that was a big moment.
“The penalty, obviously, right on the stroke of half time, two of us going to ground, cheap defending and that’s what cost us.
“We were a mile off today. Yeah, the goal was a bit fortuitous and we could’ve done better with the penalty, but we weren’t at our levels today.
“I thought Preston were excellent and they did to us what we normally do to teams and that’s the sad thing. We were a mile off and we were second best all over, so I’ve got no complaints with the result.
“Yeah, we huffed and puffed and could’ve got something if we’d have got an early goal (in the second half) but, realistically, we didn’t have it.
“I can’t remember one person playing well today, I really can’t. People didn’t jack the towel in. They kept going until the end, because that’s the group we’ve got, but we weren’t at our usual selves today and that’s the thing.”
So, talk of the Premier League was fun while it lasted, but ultimately premature. Not that Town should be immune from daring to dream. There’s no doubt Luton can mix it with the best of them in this division, on their day. After all, this is only a first defeat in more than a month, which means we’re so far away from the panic button that it’s not even in the same postcode.
And it’s been Town’s day more often than not, results-wise, but this was as bad an away performance as they’ve had in the Championship without getting walloped.
They now face Middlesbrough and Stoke at home this week, two teams that sit directly below and above them in the league, respectively. The good news is they’re not Premier League either. For Luton, they’ll need to snap out their current malaise – and quick.
