Clough rues Burton mistakes in Luton loss

Posted Sunday, December 23, 2018 by PA

Burton boss Nigel Clough admitted he should have stuck to his guns and made a host of changes after going down 2-0 at promotion-chasing Luton.

The Brewers had reached the Carabao Cup semi-final on Tuesday night by beating Middlesbrough 1-0, but only made one alteration for the match at Kenilworth Road, with striker Devante Cole replacing Jake Buxton.

Goals from Jack Stacey and James Collins (penalty) helped the Hatters to all three points.

Clough said: “They’ve [Luton] won five on the spin before and were always going to be extremely confident.

“I was very pleased with the way we started the game, the first 15 minutes, then we make a mistake, our match-winner from Tuesday night switches off, lad gets in, scores a goal and we’re chasing the game from that point.

“It was, very, very tempting to make a lot of changes or as many as we could, bring five or six fresh players in and I could have been sitting here now having lost 2-0 and everyone says ‘you should have played the same team’.

“It’s easy afterwards, but we should have rested a few because whatever team you put out its going to be difficult, but we’ve just made two mistakes and been punished.”

Victorious Luton chief Nathan Jones was thrilled to see his side make it six league wins in a row.

He said: “I’m delighted, I thought the performance was superb.

“I thought we controlled the game well, it was important to get the goal which we did and then without being disrespectful, these are a good side, they beat Middlesbrough in midweek, they’ve got a Championship squad as they haven’t lost many players, one or two, so it’s a real good result for us.

“Especially how we managed the game, how we controlled the game, we nullified them to very little.

“We weren’t at our most fluent, but I thought we were excellent and it’s another fantastic result.”

The hosts were in front on 17 minutes when Andrew Shinnie wonderfully picked out the run of defender Stacey, who chested down and fired past Bradley Collins.

Harry Cornick’s effort was easy for Collins, while Luton stopper James Shea bravely smothered at the feet of Cole.

In the second period, Lucas Akins went close for Burton, his drive deflected behind for a corner that Cole nodded over.

James Justin’s free-kick was parried by Collins, who easily claimed Elliot Lee’s follow up, while Shea gathered Reece Hutchinson’s low drive.

Luton doubled their advantage on 73 minutes, though, when substitute Danny Hylton was clipped in the area by defender Jamie Allen and Collins hammered home the spot-kick.

Hylton had the ball in the net late on, only to be flagged offside as Town moved four points ahead of third-placed Sunderland.