Still not happy despite Town salvaging a point at Cambridge

Town were poor in the first half as Tom Shaw put the hosts in front, but although Still was pleased with the battling characteristics show to twice battle back with goals from Jon Shaw and Solomon Taiwo’s penalty either side of Nathan Blissett’s header, he wasn’t happy about the overall display.

The Luton chief said: “I don’t think we played very well, I thought we battled really, really hard, but I thought our back four kept us in the game.

“We weren’t under enormous pressure, but I thought they were the only area of the pitch where people did their jobs.

“I thought our midfield four, the passing, movement was poor. I thought the front two were devoid of service, and the reason we got the result was everyone worked their socks off but did we play very well? I don’t think so.

“I don’t doubt the character, I’ve not doubted that since I’ve been here, but the qualities have got to be better.”

Still was particularly hard on the midfield four of David Martin, Jonathan Smith, Taiwo and Jake Howells as he continued: “In the first half we had two good efforts, two fine saves from the goalkeeper, but it was devoid of incident.

“The second half was better, but the creativity of the four midfield players was poor.

“You look to provide one or two things when you’re playing in midfield. Creativity, or to work hard to stop them playing.

“I was toying whether to bring in (Matt) Robinson as Solly probably had too many games too quickly and needs a little bit of a rest.

“He picked up, so we left him in, but I’m not sure that was the right thing to do, so I’ll have a look at that.

“The work-rate was okay but we’ve got to be able to supply attacking people with chances to score, and I don’t really think we did that anywhere near enough.”

Cambridge’s second goal came from a debatable free kick after Jon Shaw was penalised and Still didn’t mince his words on his thoughts over the decision, saying: “It was never a foul in a million years, even their bench said so. But we can only control the controllables, what can we say? We can’t do anything else.

Hatters hit back swiftly though as Taiwo earned Luton a point though when Andre Gray was fouled in the area and the new signing converted the spot kick.

David Martin had grabbed the ball to start with, while Jon Shaw was the designated penalty taker, but Taiwo won the battle and stroked his effort away with real class.

Still added: “I actually say to the players, if you’re bold enough (take it).

“Sometimes the state of the game changes as well, so it’s good to have two or three people ready.

“We probably will have a designated penalty taker, but once he (Taiwo) stepped up I knew he’s got quality in doing that.

“It was the one plus and I’m being a bit critical as I know what he can do. He’s probably feeling the effect of playing too many games too quickly, but once you put on the shirt you’ve got to go out and do the job and I don’t feel that he did.”

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