Fleetwood Town head coach Joey Barton spoke to the media after his team lost 2-0 away at Luton Town.
Town made the trip to Bedfordshire on Saturday afternoon in the hope of causing an upset at Kenilworth Road, but it wasn’t to be with Harry Cornick scoring after eleven minutes, and Craig Morgan deflecting Danny Hylton’s cross into his own goal to give the home side their 15th home win on the bounce.
Fleetwood did push for an equaliser with only one goal separating the two sides, but frustrated would be the word of the day with chances not falling for the away side.
From Barton’s post-match interview, here are the best quotes…
On the game against Luton…
“I am really frustrated and I am really disappointed as we came here with a game plan and obviously that was changed early in the game when James Husband went down after a challenge.
“For a moment of time we were down to ten men and when a player isn’t ready, we are playing for a longer period of time with a man less and they score their goal which means we are chasing the game from there.
“We adjusted as we needed to get ourselves back into the game and we wanted to come here and take the crowd away from Luton as they have the best home record in the division. I thought if we could frustrate them, open it up we could go on and take it to them.
“It is disappointing, but they are second in the league table and their two goals come from a deflection and a possible foul in the build-up, and there wasn’t much between the two sides and we are left scratching our heads.”
On the loss of Lewie Coyle and Wes Burns…
“It’s football at times, but we can’t fault the effort of the players because they kept chipping away trying to get back into the match. Luton are a good side and you don’t sit where you are on the table and have the home record they have if you aren’t a good side.
“We knew it would be a tough task but things happened which gave them [Luton] a leg up and when you have two starters missing, it isn’t ideal for your preparations and you always want to kick on when you win your last two games. You don’t always get what you want and you need to adjust.
“I did think we were more than capable of coming here and getting something, but it wasn’t to be and as a manager, I have to take it and I know we will always bounce back.”
On being back at home next weekend against Burton…
“The absurdity of this season so far is that we were great away from home earlier in the season and not so great at home, but in recent weeks that seems to have flipped. Today we played another team who are in the top six on the road and we have some more tough fixtures coming up starting with Burton on Saturday and then some of the big boys before the New Year. It will be a test but we need to keep believing in what we are doing and go again next weekend.”