Luton striker Jerry Yates said his goals are “like London red buses” after poked home the winner against Huddersfield last night and insisted he will never stop holding himself to the highest standard.
The forward admitted the 5-0 Barnsley thrashing had “humbled” the group but said their reaction showed the depth of character inside the dressing room, as Town fought back from a Terriers equaliser to regain control and the lead.
The 2-1 victory made it five goals for the season for Yates, who has played through a stop-start spell since joining the Hatters in the summer, which included a concussion lay-off.
It was more than two months between his only other League One goal for Luton and the 29-year-old had been playing second fiddle to Nahki Wells, but the 35-year-old’s injury offered Yates to start.
“As soon as you get the opportunity, you need to take it. A striker needs rhythm and once he gets one it’s like London red buses, they all come up once, you know what I mean? It’s one of them things. So you never get too high you never get too low about them sort of situations.”
He is still Town’s top scorer this term, but a slow goalscoring start for a new club is nothing for the forward as he went 12 games before notching his first goal for Blackpool in 2020, but went on to bag 23 goals that season.
“The first 10, 15 games, I don’t know what it is, whether I must be a slow starter or whatever, but it happens every time. I never score in the first 10, 15 games and then, usually, once you get one you end up cracking on,” he said.
His close range finish for the winner sparked debate with Lamine Fanne, whose shot was going in, only for Yates to pounce and get his goal on the line.
he laughed it off, saying: “I’ve told him it was going wide, but it was definitely going in, but I’m a striker so I’ve got to tap that home, I’ll be honest. It’s one of them – y0u’ve got to strike, I’ve got to be a little bit selfish and I’m just glad I wasn’t offside.”
He was equally frank about his standards for himself, saying: “I’m my biggest self critic, I know what I should be doing and how many I should have scored. I missed some obviously easy opportunities blah blah. So like I say, I’m my biggest critic within that thing. It’s one of them things, like red buses, when one comes they all come.”
After the weekend when Town suffered a 5-0 drubbing at Barnsley, Yates praised his Luton team-mates for fronting up after Huddersfield’s fine free-kick equaliser, which cancelled out Jake Richards’ deflected opener.
“Most teams might have crumbled under that, but we stuck to our guns got the goal back,” the striker said.
“It’s massive for the group. I knew from after the final whistle [at Barnsley] it hurt the lads, humbled the boys, so we knew we had to work hard Sunday, Monday to put things right and we did.”
The forward said watching the Barnsley defeat back had stung: “Of course, you end up watching the game back and seeing where you go wrong and stuff like that. It did humble us, because we went five unbeaten before that and maybe we’ve got a bit too high, sort of thing. That result did knock us a bit, but the character of the group was massive.”
Despite returning to wining ways, Yates said the dressing room would not get carried away.
“We’re going in the right direction. I say that we don’t get too high I don’t get too low and we know what they need to do. It’s nice to get a victory over a team like that. Maybe boost our confidence even more. We forget about that now and move on to Bolton.”
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