Nigel Pearson bemoaned Bristol City's first half performance and claimed too many players performed below par after his side left Kenilworth Road empty-handed following a 1-0 defeat.
The visitors were immediately under the cosh from the first whistle and fell behind within four minutes when Cam Pring lost possession in his own half. Cody Drameh's cross found the head of Carlton Morris who buried his header into the bottom corner for his 16th league goal of the season.
City were fortunate to go into the break just one goal behind, particularly when Pring somehow escaped a red card. The City defender was beaten by the pace and strength of Elijah Adebayo who opted to stay on his feet despite having his shirt pulled while surging through on goal.
Pearson changed shape at the end of the first half, opting for a diamond formation and it did give them more joy going forward after Andi Weimann registered their first shot on target in the second period. But City, who could only name six substitutes on the bench due to the ongoing injury crisis, never particularly threatened Ethan Horvath in the Luton goal.
Speaking after the game, Pearson said: "We gave ourselves too many problems from the start. We didn't start well. Too many players out of sorts today who made too many poor errors.
"Against a side like that who put us under pressure, to concede so early it looked as though it could have been a tough night but we managed to get to half-time intact.
"Players are going to have off days but what we don't want is more or less most of the team not really with a positive outlook. We were too negative in possession, and we didn't deal with the ball particularly well.
"Max made three really good saves to keep us in the game. We had some chances but it was a tough night for us because we had too many players out of sorts. In the second half, we were much better.
"We had to change our shape to try and make a different impact on the game and I think that worked pretty well to a large extent. But you can't give your opponents the impetus to try and drive forward straight from the outset. We made too many poor errors ourselves."
Matty James was forced to miss out with an ankle injury following a reaction during training on Tuesday, while George Tanner could only make the substitute bench with illness. Despite the lacklustre performance in the first half, Pearson believes his team deserves some credit for keeping themselves in the contest.
"They're the same players that we will call upon at the weekend (versus Swansea), so it's not as if we can make wholesale changes anyway," Pearson added.
"Here's the other thing, a lot of the players who have played tonight have been in really good form so us. I still think the players come out with some credit having been able to stay in the game when we're not playing well and put our opponents on the back foot in the second half.
"We finished the game pretty strongly and they had players who looked dead on their feet basically but it was a disappointing result for us. In the context of what happened tonight, we can't be too upset with losing by one goal although we had our chances in the second half, no doubt about that."
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