Bottom line for the boss: cut out the errors
Town boss John Still hopes his side can cut out the mistakes which have seen his side win just once in League 2 this season when Mansfield visit Kenilworth Road this weekend.
The Hatters have conceded four goals in injury time in seven League 2 fixtures so far, while only three teams have conceded more than the 13 the Town have.
All of those goals against have been studied and digested once again this week as Still targets a first clean sheet of the season against the Stags on Saturday.
“We’ve analysed all of the goals with the players and looked at what we think maybe possible reasons and we’ve been out on the training ground and worked on it,” said the manager at his Thursday press call. “What you can’t take away, though, is human error, no matter how organised you are, no matter who knows their job.
“If someone lets the ball go over their head, you can’t do that out there in training because out there it’s spot on but they do it in games.”
Despite the indifferent start to the season, spirit remain high in the camp that the Town can turn the corner and eradicate the issue of conceding so many goals.
“We’ve had a good week, we’ve worked well, but we’re conceding too many goals, so that tells me we’ve got to work hard to rectify this little problem,” said Still.
“I think our form is okay, we’re into the vein of playing how I want, but we have to make sure we don’t concede avoidable goals. It happens, but I think we’ve been guilty of it for a few games now.
“It’s really important that you do analyse, win or lose, and while taking into account my teams take a while to get going, I think we’ve played all right, I really do.
“With the playing all right I would expect to have more points and we’ve been beaten too often late in games, it’s not right and we’ve conceded too many goals.
“We work on the training ground and learn there if we’re vulnerable or not and it’s not anything we’ve seen in training.”
Notts County’s injury-time winner last weekend denied the Hatters what would have been a welcome point having originally battled from 2-0 down to level at 2-2.
But why are the Town coming unstuck so late in games?
“Is it a psychological thing? I don’t think so. Is it a concentration thing? Maybe,” said Still.
“Overall I just don’t think we’ve defended it well enough. I have too much respect for these players to make excuses as they’re good players, reasonably experienced players and one or two of them have not quite got it right defensively at the moment.
“We go through it with them, we train, work with them in the week, they now have to go and play. If they are good players, they’ll overcome that.”