Town solve one problem, only to face another

Captain Ronnie Henry has been pleased by Luton’s progression at the back, but is demanding more from he and his team-mates.

He said: “We were conceding a lot of goals earlier on I the season. We seem to have shored it up a little bit, but conceded a sloppy one here and there. That’s how we’re going to win the league, we’ve got to keep clean sheets which we ain’t doing.

“We’ve got to stop them one goals, I mean it was a sloppy mistake tonight where he cut inside and he finished it well. But we need to score at the other end as well we know that and the lads are disappointed in there. We’ve got to grow up quick.

“It is frustrating, we’re not scoring goals at the minute and we’re conceding sloppy ones again and it’s not good enough from us. We’ve got to learn quick, we’ve got to learn to fight more and be more up for it really because there is not enough coming from the players, they’ve got to give more.”

And he didn’t think the new additions had caused any disruption, saying: “They’re all good professional players in there. We should be able to adapt very quickly, a lot of them have come in. Scotty Neilson, Dave Martin and they’ve been decent. They’ve been good lads, getting amongst the banter in the changing room and I think we need to drive them on.

“It’s not going to be pretty the last however many games we’ve got. We’ve got to battle these out and get the results.”

And dejected winger Neilson admitted it would probably take a ‘miracle’ to get them back in the title challenge.

On what needs to to happen, he said: “We need to stick together and we need to knuckle down and sort this out.

“I think we can all look around and realise that’s not good enough at all. Even for the fans travelling to watch us they want to be seeing three points. It’s not good enough, no.

“I think unless we can have a miracle really we need to just keep winning really. It seems like to get a win is such hard work. We should be coming to places like this and getting three points and going straight home and going straight into the next game. The way it is it seems to get three points is such hard work.

“We’ve said we need to come to places like this and win comfortably really and bounce back and win again at home. Saturday, Tuesday we need to start picking up at least four points for the week.

“It’s gutting really. I’ll be in in the morning and I’m sure the gaffer will be playing the game over and we need to go through it. Something’s got to change.”

The Hatters have again assembled a squad with plenty of experience and nous and the players know they are not living up to expectations as Neilson admitted that Dartford probably wanted it more on the night.

He added:“The teams in this league on paper are nowhere near as good as us. I don’t understand what’s going on really.

“I think we started well the second half, we were on the front foot and it’s just a bit demoralising really, we go and concede again and then it’s a mountain to climb. Especially teams like Dartford that are part-time they go one-up they are going to get every man behind the ball and they seemed like they wanted it more than us tonight.”