Matt Bloomfield still believes Luton have the fight to escape relegation despite a 2-0 defeat at Watford which left them five points adrift of safety at the bottom of the Championship table.
Tom Dele-Bashiru’s early penalty and a tap-in from Edo Kayembe turned out to be enough to inflict a ninth defeat in 12 league matches upon the Hatters.
Bloomfield, who replaced Rob Edwards as manager on January 14, insists the squad he has inherited is still good enough to save itself.
“We have to believe in that and I do believe in that,” he said. “We saw in the second half that the boys are still fighting.
“We were rocked in the first half, that was obvious, but the boys kept playing.
“They didn’t go under but, unfortunately, weren’t able to find the goal that would have got us back in the game.
“We have to keep working and keep improving. Generally we are doing alright between the two boxes but games are won or lost in the penalty boxes and it’s not going our way.
“It has hurt us. We have to eradicate the errors at one end and start taking our chances at the other.”
Bloomfield has so far overseen three draws and five defeats in his eight games in charge, with the Hatters seemingly on course to for back-to-back relegations from the Premier League to League One.
Luton have won just once away from home all season and Bloomfield had a message to the fans.
“Thank you for your support, sorry we didn’t give you something to cheer. They are following us in their numbers and the away record this season hasn’t been good enough.”
Watford moved to within three points of the play-offs with a win that ended a sequence of five home defeats.
Goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski was adjudged to have fouled Hornets striker Mamadou Doumbia for an 11th-minute penalty and Kayembe’s 23rd-minute second came from a superb run into the box from the impressive Giorgi Chakvetadze.
Manager Tom Cleverley was delighted his players rose to the occasion, having lost the reverse fixture 3-0 in October.
“Today was comfortably our best first-half performance of the season,” he said.
“We rose to the challenge and guided the game the way we wanted it to be played. The players absolutely nailed the game plan and deserve all the credit.
“I want the players to enjoy these moments and have more of them. We were by no means obsessed about any sort of revenge.”
Cleverley insisted his side would have gone on to win even if the penalty had not been given.
“I’ve not seen it back, it looked like the goalkeeper got there late and brought him down but I don’t think the decision for the penalty would have had an impact on the result today”.
Cleverley praised Doumbia, the 19-year-old forward who has yet to score a senior goal, for winning it.
“Mamadou is a pleasure to work with,” he said. “His movement is great, he chases lost causes, and he did everything but score, which will come.”
