Graeme Jones confirmed for the first time that Luton are in a relegation battle after yesterday’s 2-1 home defeat to Nottingham Forest.
It was Town’s third Championship defeat on the spin, seeing them slip to fourth from bottom, just two points off the drop zone.
It was one of their worst performances with Jones admitting it was the first time he’d been disappointed with his side’s play which included 70 per cent possession, but very little invention.
Callum McManaman netted a late consolation made the scoreline more flattering, and Jones said:“We all need to keep it real, where we are.
“All of a sudden, and I try to be positive, we’re 15 games in, and I think we’ll be absolutely fine in the Championship, but we’re in a relegation battle. People need to understand that.
“I think the supporters, staff and the players at this football club have been very realistic from word go, but I wanted to look positive and I wanted to look up, but we’re in a relegation battle right now.
“Next week is another opportunity to earn three points and that’s how we have to view things.
“The supporters have known from minute one, but why do I want to talk about a relegation battle in August. Anything could happen but today we sit fourth bottom of the table and we haven’t won for three.
“I think we’ve got enough in our game to get results, but today was a bit of a different challenge. Luton Town, at home to Nottingham Forest, had to break them down. They played 4-5-1 and played on the counter attack and think that shocked us a little bit.
“All of a sudden we had the ball and we had time on the ball. I saw it quite early on, which gave us a route, but we didn’t execute it well enough. Every time we fiddled it inside we gave the ball away. We got done on the counter attack, which is what they set up for. When you play against teams like that you’ve got to be perfect technically. You can’t afford to make a mistake. So it’s another lesson.”
“I’m not here to be blaming people. We need to understand what’s happened, do something about it and we need to find solutions. But I need 14 players that are going to come in and execute the game plan, understand what we’re trying to do, give everything they’ve got, show courage, in terms of competing with people, show courage on the ball, show understanding, but I was disappointed by some today. I’ll have to look at it and address it next week.”
