Boss Roy Keane hopes next Sunday’s derby will prove the ideal game for his side to return to form after three successive defeats (BBC1, 1pm). Robert Koren’s second half strike was enough to give Hull City a 1-0 victory over the Blues at the weekend.

Keane said: “Hopefully it’s a good game for us to try and bounce back. It’s away from home and it’s a derby and we’ve watched enough games to know they’re hard to predict and that in a sense your form goes out the window.

“That might be a good thing because our form over the last three games, despite the effort having been fine, has seen us lose games. You can’t keep losing football matches because the pressure builds and then you go into the next game and it’s a ‘must-win game’.

“Then sometimes you take silly gambles, but first and foremost going into the game next week we want to be hard to beat and we’ll take it from there.”

The Blues boss says everybody at a club feels it when a side loses games: “Pressure builds on everyone when you don’t win football matches. I keep saying pressure builds from within. We’re disappointed ourselves and next week is a game we want to win because we’re dropping down the league. The derby one is always a good one to look forward to.”

Keane said on Friday that he believed progress had been made in his time at Town, but concedes that his team have to show that on the pitch: “Despite me sitting here and trying to talk a good game, you’ve got to go out and do the business and we’ve not done that. That pressure builds on trying to get the right result in the next game.

“It’ll be a long week because a week is a long time in football, but we’ll have to lick our wounds and our supporters will be looking forward to a tough game next week.”

Meanwhile, on-loan Town defender Jack Ainsley suffered a nightmare debut with Histon having been at fault on three of Luton’s goals as they defeated the Stutes 5-1 on Saturday.

Story syndicated from TWTD.co.uk

Photo: Action Images

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