Nathan Jones hails professional display from Hatters

Posted Sunday, December 09, 2018 by PA

Luton boss Nathan Jones praised his side’s professionalism as they moved into the automatic promotion places with a routine 2-0 win over Fleetwood.

Harry Cornick’s 11th-minute strike and Craig Morgan’s own goal with 10 minutes to go proved enough to secure a sixth successive home victory.

Jones said: “Conditions were not conducive for a real football match, but I thought we put in a thoroughly professional performance as we weren’t at our fluent best, we didn’t dominate.

“They came and made it very difficult, they played a back five, a diamond and one up top. They came to contain us and that kind of went out the window by getting an early goal, which is what we like to do when teams try to do that.

“Fleetwood are a good side, they’ve got so many good players, players who have played at a higher level. I thought we were excellent, it was a real professional performance and I’m delighted.”

Visiting boss Joey Barton felt the turning point was James Husband’s injury moments before the Hatters took the lead.

He said: “I’m really frustrated, really disappointed. We came here with a game plan. Hubby pulls his hamstring or has a tweak in his hamstring and we’re down to 10 men.

“Demps (Kyle Dempsey) isn’t ready to come on for whatever reason, and that means we’re playing for a longer period than we should have done with 10 men.

“They scored at that point and then we’re chasing the game a little bit, and then the game plan has to be adjusted as we’ve got to get into the game a little bit.

“The plan was to take the crowd away from them as they’ve got the best home record in the division, frustrate them and then as the game opened up we would have made changes to go and win the game ourselves.

“It’s disappointing because they are the team that is third in the table and there is not really much between the two sides.”

The visitors went closest first, Ched Evans shooting at James Shea, before Hatters had the lead on 11 minutes lead when Andrew Shinnie’s low cross was turned home by Cornick for his third goal in three games.