Nathan Jones thrilled as Luton finally produce second-half performance

Posted Sunday, September 18, 2022 by PA

Luton boss Nathan Jones hailed his side’s ‘wonderful’ second-half display as they earned a first home win of the season by beating Blackburn 2-0 at Kenilworth Road.

A quiet opening 45 minutes preceded a dominant performance after the break from the Hatters, with goals from Carlton Morris and Reece Burke sealing victory.

Jones said: “It was a wonderful performance, especially the second half.

“We’ve actually not scored in the second half at home (in the league), so we’ve really put a big emphasis on it.

“They’ve had to come back from midweek where we weren’t great but we still should have won the game in terms of a late penalty (appeal, against Coventry), so they’ve had to cope with quite a lot.

“But today they were magnificent, second half we were aggressive, we pressed, we looked a threat and should have had more.

“Jordan Clark passed it to Cauley (Woodrow) when he should have shot, Cauley has a volley, we’ve had real, real good opportunities as well where we could have made it more.

“But it’s a wonderful performance and needed. I’m really proud of that and it’s good to go into the international break with a win.”

Rovers had the best chance of the first half, Ben Brereton Diaz going through on goal only to be denied by keeper Ethan Horvath, with Dan Potts clearing off the line.

After the break, Clark had two opportunities before he crossed for Morris to cushion a volley into the net after 58 minutes for his sixth goal in six games.

Defender Burke, back from a rib injury, made it 2-0 with a brilliant curling effort from 20 yards on his weaker left foot and James Bree and Woodrow almost added a third.

Late on, Ryan Hedges sliced wide for Blackburn, George Hirst doing the same in stoppage time, as Rovers boss Jon Dahl Tomasson added: “I hate losing, players hate losing, fans hate that.

“It was a disappointing result, we knew before we arrived it would be a difficult place to come to.

“Looking at the first half we created some opportunities and probably had the best chance of the game.

“We had a decent first half, spoke about it at half-time, what we did well and what to expect and in the second half, those things we did well in the first half, we didn’t do that well in the second.

“Overall I’m disappointed with the result and the challenge for us is to be less inconsistent, more stable, less bumps in the road.

“If we had scored the first goal we probably would have won the game, we didn’t.

“We had the two best chances, so we need to be more stable – not only away but at home, we need to improve a lot.

“I’ve been saying that many times, some of the things in the first half we did were good but we need to do that longer and keep doing the right things.”