Luton break their duck

Luton finally broke their duck in away matches with a point in their first ever league meeting with Yeovil Town, but they missed a stream of opportunities and it is hard not to consider this as two more points lost rather than one gained.

Playing a 4-5-1 formation again, Blackwell rang the changes and played Calvin Andrew as the lone striker and recalled Darren Currie for Dean Morgan, who didn’t even make the bench.

In defence, Richard Jackson dropped to the bench with all three central defenders taking the field. The central pairing of Fojut and Coyne looked as solid as Luton have been all season and Chris Perry took up the right back berth.

In the first half Luton played as if they were the home team and dominated play. However there was too much sideways and backward movement which limited the amount of danger they caused in the Glovers’ penalty area. Even so they did create chances but some terrible finishing cost the Town the three points that their domination deserved.

The use of Dave Edwards as the thrusting midfielder getting on the end of crosses should have yielded goals but for some reason the youngster has developed the habit of shooting over the bar when well placed and missed a few golden opportunities. At least he was getting into the positions to strike and will score goals before long.

The big improvement in Luton’s performance was the willingness to close the opposition down as soon as they had possession and this left Yeovil struggling to get out of their own half for much of the first 45 minutes.

Strangely, Blackwell brought on Drew Talbot for David Bell, who had tormented the Yeovil left back, and the Town boss must have been rueing the fact that he had no Dean Morgan to come on and really take him apart.

Luton continued to press looking for the goal which would have seen the home team off, but it never came.

In fact, as the game drew to a close, it was Yeovil who came closest to breaking the deadlock and you could sense the Luton fans were just waiting for them to score and snatch the points in the manner to which we have become accustomed away from home!

It took two tremendous saves from on loan keeper Ben Alnwyck, one with a full length dive from a shot by Barry and then, an even better save with 15 minutes left, from a fierce drive by Peltier,to prevent the Glovers from mugging the Town.

Even so, Luton had the golden opportunity to score that they had be striving for, when Darren Currie curled a free-kick into the penalty area and a cushion header by Andrew left Edwards with the goal at his mercy, but from about 12 yards he contrived to miss the target and despite throwing caution to the wind and throwing everything into attack in the dying minutes a goal just wouldn’t come and it finished 0-0.

On the plus side, Luton rarely looked troubled by a couple of decent strikers in Owusu and Stewart, and they carved out enough chances to have won the game and on another night could have won 4 or 5 nil. On the down side, another game that should have been won has slipped by and the Hatters, who ought to be in the top three, if they had won all the games that they have dominated and yet lost, are falling further behind in their objective to gain promotion at the first attempt after relegation.

In fact, it is always worrying when you start looking at the results of teams below you before worrying about those above you!

Incidentally, Leeds won again and have now overtaken Luton on goal difference despite having a 15 point penalty!