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Nathan Jones gives his opinion on why Luton threw away a home win against Swansea City
Sunday, 19th Sep 2021 11:00 by David Cornish

It was a bizarre game for sure, not one for the faint hearted, and I can vouch for that. Luton Town manager Nathan Jones looked slightly shocked as well as he responded to questions as to why his side threw away a three goal lead yesterday.

Nathan Jones at times cant help himself, but he did have a few valid points in his post match assessment.“Elijah’s gone through at three nil, it could have been four, Harry Cornick hits the post when clean in and the game should have been put to bed “But when you don’t do that it gives you hope, then they’ve come into it last half an hour and got three goals and that's really disappointing from our point of view. “We looked dead on our feet”

"We've had two big away journeys and there’s no benefit for this two (away) and two (home) for me as we’ve had real trouble and I haven’t been able to make a load of changes. “We’ve had no benefit whatsoever of having two away journeys as when we come back to play here, we haven't been able to do any work and that's tough. “Today I thought for an hour we were excellent”

"First half was as good as defensive pressing performance as you'll see, we pressed them high and could have had far more than we did and that’s the only thing, but we didn't think we'd need more than three to win a game. This game should have been done and dusted, but it wasn’t and the Championship, if you don't do that, you can come unstuck. “We should never have dropped like we did, but we looked dead, tactically whatever you would have done, we looked like we had no energy to go and press, go and win the thing”


Nathan Jones none too happy after throwing away a three goal lead

“Then we just soaked up pressure and they scored three from outside the box, it’s not like they carved us open, they got to an area, had a shot and all three had deflections, so it’s a tough one to take. When you go three games and two big away journeys and playing Wednesday night and then having to go again, especially how we play, either we adjust how we play, or we've got to get our players back, and that's the way it is."

Luton did have numerous chances to literally blow Swansea away yesterday, they didn’t take them, conversely the swans could have hit them for six in the second half. “Elijah has had one first half, he's been clean in, if you do that it's four nil, if Harry scores it's five nil then it's a different game. “But when it’s three nil, and to be fair, even their first goal, we press and we get real good pressure on it and he's just hooked it round the corner, lucky enough it's gone to someone and then they've gone out”

“So we had enough pressure on the ball, I thought our performance for an hour was excellent and unfathomably we conceded three late on and probably could have lost the game, so that’s the way it is. “We’ve been the beneficiaries of late goals this week and now we're the victims.”

Luton Town: Sluga; Bree, Burke, Lockyer, Naismith (C); Osho, Mpanzu, Lansbury, Berry (Clark 60); Cornick (Jerome 76), Adebayo (Rea 89).

Subs not used: Shea, Hylton, Mendes Gomes, Pereira.

Goals: Berry 7, Adebayo 15 & 24

Yellow cards: Lansbury 28, Naismith 47

Swansea City: Hamer; Bennett, Naughton, Williams (Cabango 46); Laird, Downes (Piroe 46), Grimes (C), Manning; Walsh (Ntcham 46), Paterson; Obafemi.

Subs not used: Benda, Latibeaudiere, Smith, Fulton.

Goals: Paterson 63, Ntcham 86, Piroe 90+2

Yellow card: Manning 28

Referee: Tony Harrington

Attendance: 9,721 (831 away) * The away attendance does not correlate again with the amount of tickets sold for this game which is in excess of a thousand. We will clarify this from our usual away following sources before the conclusion of Sunday hopefully.

Photographs licensed from Reuters



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ReslovenSwan1 added 13:35 - Sep 19
I am not a football coach or tactician but have watch Swansea for over 4 decades off and on. I have listed to Martin and taken on board what he has said in good faith. I believe what he says until low term result prove otherwise.

Martin has articulated that possession football and playing out from the back is a legitmate tactic and this is the direction of travel. He says that teams that have the easy option of high press (destructive football) have to be aware of energy level and burn out. In some early games Martin pointed out it was opposing teams that had n more energy no the possession based Swansea team. He stated this was not due to the system but lack of fitness from a disturbed pre season Covid and late signings. (It is often said the Championhip is a marathon not a sprint).

The luton game appears to have vindicated the managers methods. The luton manager admitted his team "were out on their feet" for the last 20 mins where Swasea cashed in with 3 goals and could have had one or to more. Clearly going 0-3 down was not good. However Luton spent up a lot of energy 'high pressing'. The first goal was poor marking at a corner. The penalty was soft and just plain bad defending by Naughton who had cover and Naughton was caught out again by a cross filed ball for the third.

Teams like Luton with smallish squads are going to struggle with Swansea s style (once perfected) with the 46 game grind ahead. Another 40 odd games every three days with injuries suspensions and fitness concerns.

Swansea clearly need to tighten up defensively against an aggressive hard high press.

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