Hatters boss Graeme Jones said he was ‘really disappointed’ for the first time with a Town performance this season after his side were defeated 2-1 by Nottingham Forest this afternoon.
Lewis Grabban and Sammy Ameobi gave the visitors a two-goal lead before Callum McManaman got one back late on, but the Hatters were left frustrated as they struggled to make in-roads against a well-drilled Sabri Lamouchi side.
Jones said: “I could hide behind 70 per cent possession, two offside goals. I am not going to, I was disappointed with the performance for the first time, really, really disappointed. The performance wasn’t good enough, a totally different challenge to the one we have had here previously in the Championship.
“We had Nottingham Forest and we need to mark how far we have come sometimes, former two-time European Cup winners, sitting in and playing on the counter-attack at Luton and I think we struggled for craft and creativity. To break them down and that’s the true assessment of today. Losing Izzy Brown so early doesn’t help, we tried everything and it wasn’t enough.
“His delivery from set-plays has been vital, Izzy is our most creative player. He has to play if we’re going to stay in the league. He has to play, it’s as simple as that. I hope not [that it’s a long term problem]. It’s a problem with his hamstring. He has had huge demands, everyone talks about changing teams last week because of the three games in a week – I didn’t change him because he is so important and then you get this and you wonder why.
“When you play three times in a week, it’s about being able to repeat that physical level and then recover and go again. He’s in that period where he hasn’t played football for two years, he has now played a lot of games and it maybe caught up with him.”