Jones grateful for point after Luton’s late rally at Walsall

Posted Sunday, December 30, 2018 by PA

Luton manager Nathan Jones was left wishing he could go back in time despite seeing Kazenga LuaLua’s injury-time equaliser rescue the promotion-hunting Hatters a 2-2 draw at Walsall.

Trailing 2-0 to Morgan Ferrier’s penalty and Andy Cook’s volley, Luton scored twice in the last 20 minutes – but Jones was adamant it should have been three.

Two minutes after James Collins threw them a 72nd-minute lifeline, Hatters substitute Danny Hylton saw a goal wrongly disallowed for offside.

And after the second-placed Hatters lost ground on leaders Portsmouth – despite extending their unbeaten run to 12 league games – Jones said he would have loved to turn back time.

Jones said: “We should have won it because Danny scored a perfectly good goal, he’s onside. That’s five or six for the season where we’ve had goals wrongfully chalked off.

“In our last defeat against Barnsley, we had two bad decisions and it cost us. Luckily today, it didn’t cost us but if we had scored on 74 minutes, who knows what could have happened.

“I would have preferred to have a time machine and go back to 74 minutes and say 2-2, right, 16 minutes, who is going to win it?
“We weren’t quite at it today but, look, it’s a crazy Christmas schedule.

“Walsall will moan about refereeing decisions late on but if the correct decision had been made on 74 minutes, then we would have been 2-2. So maybe it evened it out in the end.

“They’ve shown real spirit and character today that we’ve got in the team in abundance. I’m proud of them. To keep the unbeaten run going in those circumstances is great.”

With both sides fielding matching midfield diamonds, the game took a while to get going before Luton’s Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu curled a fine effort onto the post from the edge of the box.

However, Jack Stacey’s needless lunge on Saddlers skipper George Dobson conceded a 26th minute penalty that Morgan Ferrier tucked home to put Walsall ahead.

The Saddlers comfortably held Luton at bay before another Hatters error handed them a second goal in the 67th minute, Andy Cook volleying home after Town keeper James Shea spilled Luke Leahy’s cross.

That was Cook’s tenth goal of the season and Collins quickly joined him on that mark five minutes later, swivelling neatly in the box to drill between keeper Liam Roberts’ legs.

After Hylton’s header – glancing home Mpanzu’s ambitious long-range volley – was ruled out two minutes later, Walsall looked to have held out.

But a hotly-disputed stoppage-time free-kick led to heavy Luton pressure and Mpanzu’s lofted ball was flicked home by LuaLua with the outside of his boot.

Walsall boss Dean Keates said the free-kick – for a Jon Guthrie challenge on Hylton – was a ‘shambolic’ decision but admitted his side should have seen the game out better.

It was a case of déjà vu for Keates after Walsall let a two-goal lead slip in similar circumstances against Luton’s promotion rivals Sunderland last month.

Keates, who also revealed Walsall have accepted a bid, believed to be from Championship club Preston, for winger Josh Ginnelly, said: “We will shoulder it but there’s a decision that’s gone against us that’s an embarrassment.

“We fully deserved to be 2-0 up and at points we were comfortable against probably, if you look at the form table, the best team in the division. We have more than matched them.

“We will look back and they will have to learn from it. I keep on going on about decision-making being massive in football and there’s points of the game where it should have been killed off.

“That’s being a bit more bright with the ball and making the right decision to kill the game in play.

“It’s not the first time we’ve let a lead slip. And it needs addressing, it needs sorting. The lads are gutted but they have to be a bit more clued-up about how to kill a game of football off.

“We need to learn from our mistakes but I keep saying the same thing week in, week out, and it has to sink in at some point.”