Sabri Lamouchi: Cardiff were undone by the small details in Luton defeat

Posted Wednesday, February 01, 2023 by PA

New Cardiff boss Sabri Lamouchi felt his side did not deserve to lose his opening game in charge.

The former Nottingham Forest boss, who was only appointed on Friday, was in the dugout for the first time, but saw Luton forward Elijah Adebayo snatch a late winner.

Lamouchi said: “We tried to put one plan. We didn’t start very, very well, I saw the team losing a lot of simple things – control, passes, duels as well in the beginning, and even at the end.

“I think we deserved to score first, but in the situation we need to just stay focused to try to keep calm and with a different structure, to try to go away from these bad moments, because it’s not the result we were looking for.

“I don’t know if we deserved even this result because the team (fought) right until the end, but in the small details we were not there.

“I don’t want to say we controlled Luton, but we disturbed Luton.

“Unfortunately, offensively we didn’t believe we can do better, so step by step, we will try to do it.

“Of course, we did not create enough and if you don’t create enough, you need to be ready to put the ball in.

“That’s why at the end, after the penalty, probably the team were thinking ‘we are close to getting the point’, so the players are disappointed.”

Luton striker Adebayo saw a 70th-minute penalty, won for handball, saved by Ryan Allsop and Ryan Wintle sliced horribly wide for Cardiff when clean through five minutes later.

Adebayo made amends in the 88th minute, though, heading home Alfie Doughty’s cross.

Luton boss Rob Edwards said: “It’s a really good win, a really difficult game as you can all see.

“Sabri is new in and it’s always difficult to go up against a new manager, a really experienced coach, good coach, who had a bit of time to get to work with them as well.

“It was going to be really hard to break them down, we knew that.

“I thought we went with the right intentions, we tried to do the right things, we tried to mix our game up, tried to play around them and at times go over or into our strikers.

“We did create chances and half-chances and almost moments, lots of crosses, and then missed a penalty. You start to think maybe it’s not our night, but I’m delighted for Eli.”