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The second half was more of a problem

Last updated : 01 April 2007 By Tony Scholes
For Luton it was a first game in charge for new manager Kevin Blackwell and he's taken over a side that for the second time in a season has lost six consecutive games. They brought that to an end although the weekend results have now seen them drop to bottom place.

"It would have been nice to come away with a win, but I'm delighted with the attitude of the players," Blackwell said after the game. "They knuckled down to a shape and system that we wanted them to play and they showed certain things in set pieces that they had remembered from earlier in the week.

"The work rate, particularly in the second half, was excellent. We had chances that were more than half chances and on another day one might have gone in. Matthew Spring had a couple of efforts, Kevin Foley came in with one late on and David Bell had a good chance with a header. It was all just one of those things but if they carry on doing that, it is all we can ask of them."

Clarets' boss Steve Cotterill was unhappy with the way we played, particularly after the half time interval. "I thought Luton came here not to get beat, with a 4-5-1 system and an isolated striker," he said. "That allowed us to pin them back in the first half, when we knocked on the door a little without knocking it down.

"I thought that first half performance was ok, nothing more than ok, but the second half was more of a problem I felt. In the second half we looked a little bit scared and they came into the game more."

Speaking about his new signings Steve said: "I thought both players had decent debuts. Towards the end of the game they were getting a little leggy, but I thought Graham Coughlan and Steven Caldwell looked solid at the back and I thought Paul McVeigh ad a couple of chances that he may feel he could have done better with. They are both added to our squad for the rest of the season and we are delighted to have them."

He'd made five changes ahead of the game and explained his reasoning for leaving a couple of those players out, Wade Elliott and James O'Connor. "You can only pick sixteen players and Wade hasn't scored a lot of goals for us. Today we just went for some fresh faces that maybe wouldn't have felt the pressure some of the others might be feeling.

"I thought James had dipped for a few games. Everyone knows what I think of him, but we have analysed things on DVD and I didn't feel he had as much of an impact as I would have liked at either Southend or Preston. Coupled with him being on nine bookings, that was the decision."

And why were we suddenly in white shorts and socks? "You are allowed one change a season and we just did it to see if it would work. You go into everything don't you and we will go into everything we can to try and get that win."

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