‘We play to Elijah’s strengths,’ says Jones over striker’s nation-topping goal record

Nathan Jones says he doesn’t care where top marksman Elijah Adebayo scores from, but admits his current nation-topping talent for six-yard finishes is because Luton play to his strengths.

The forward scored his 12th goal of the season to beat Bristol City on Tuesday. He might have known little about it, but it marked him out as the striker with the highest percentage of six-yard goals in all four top divisions in England. 

Six of Adebayo’s 11 Championship goals (55 per cent) have come from close range and boss Jones said: “We play to Elijah’s strengths, we work with him and he gives us something that we haven’t had before.

“We’ve never really had a target man since I’ve been here, Danny’s (Hylton) probably been the best target man we’ve had, but Eli is a proper, proper number nine, and he’s done wonderful.

“I don’t care where he scores from, as long as he scores, and he’s been very good and he gives us that dimension that we use.”

The victory in midweek also extended Town’s run this term of never having lost in the league after scoring the first goal. In fact, the record stretches to 87 games under Jones. They last lost after notching first back in League Two and a 3-1 defeat at home to Portsmouth in November 2016.

Jones said: I think the first goal is very important in any football match these days because of tactics and the way things happen in games. We’re proud of that, long may that continue and I just hope we get the first goal.”

And that could be even more significant this weekend when Luton host high-flying Blackburn Rovers, even though they’ll be without the division’s second highest scorer in Ben Brereton, who is away on international duty with Chile.

“It’s going to be a very difficult game,” said Jones, adding: “We’ve had some real good games against Blackburn. We’ve got good memories against them from when we stayed up. 

“They’ve been a Premier League side, they’ve been a Championship side, League One for a short period of time, and then went back up. 

“But they’ve got a really experienced manager, a real good group of players. The games that we play against them are usually very tight and marginal, so it’s going to be a really tough game. Once again, we’re playing one of the top two.”