Jones happy to take points against battling Scunthorpe

Posted Thursday, December 27, 2018 by PA

Luton boss Nathan Jones admitted his in-form side rode their luck as they made it seven league wins in a row at Scunthorpe.

The 2-0 triumph moved the Hatters to within a point of League One leaders Portsmouth but they were on the ropes for much of the first half, only to deliver two knockout blows via Andrew Shinnie and Harry Cornick either side of the break.

“I’m delighted more with the result than the overall performance because I felt we rode our luck a little bit,” Jones said.

“For whatever reason, I felt we looked weak and it wasn’t until we scored that we really looked like we had a foothold in the game.

“For the first five minutes we were excellent but then Scunthorpe were better than us.

“They played a really strange shape – almost a 3-3-4 – and we struggled to get to grips with it.

“But in the second half we came out and managed the game much better. We were deserved winners overall – I think we had a bit more quality when it came to chances.

“I’ve said to the players that we’ve played better and lost but we got a let-off early on with a couple of chances and once we did find some fluency to our play, we scored a really good goal.”

Both bosses admitted the contest could have been very different had the home side not squandered an excellent 12th-minute opening when winger Yassin Ben El-Mhanni volleyed over a cross to the back post from inside the six-yard box.

As it was, the Hatters eventually stamped their authority on the contest, with Shinnie finding the bottom corner with a first-time shot from the edge of the penalty area in the 37th minute and Cornick following up to double his side’s lead five minutes into the second-half.

Elliot Lee had been denied by goalkeeper Jak Alnwick having capitalised on a defensive mix-up between the Iron’s Levi Sutton and Charlie Goode.

“Luton are probably the in-form team in Europe, not just Britain, and eventually I think they showed why,” said Scunthorpe boss Stuart McCall.

“After the first five minutes, I thought it could be a long day for us but then we grew into the game and got a bit of a foothold in it.

“When you’re down where we are and not winning games or scoring goals, you have to take your chances when they come along and Yas (El-Mhanni) missed a big one when he volleyed over.

“I was pleased with the effort and togetherness we showed against a good side in the first half but we gave away another soft goal and that cost us.

“If you had a Christmas video of bloopers, we’d be in the top 10 with every goal we’re conceding at the moment and Luton were in comfort-mode after that really.

“We would have had an opportunity at 1-0 to keep going but the second goal flattened everything.”