Matt Bloomfield reveals Luton Town tactic that condemned Derby County to damaging defeat

Matt Bloomfield has promised Luton Town will keep "scrapping and fighting" for their Championship lives after triumphing in a must-win relegation battle at Derby County.

The Hatters boss was thrilled with his team’s first-half performance at Pride Park, taking the lead through Millenic Alli in the first 10 minutes and forcing the Rams on to the back-foot.

The hosts rallied in the second half and created several promising opportunities only to be repelled by a redoubtable Hatters defence - bolstered by the introduction of extra centre-backs Reece Burke and Teden Mengi, a former loan player for Derby.

In the end Bloomfield’s men held on, won 1-0 and moved level on points with Derby. With three games to go John Eustace’s side is out of the bottom three on goal difference alone.

That effectively makes the next couple of weeks a three-game sprint towards safety.

“I think we've had a little bit of momentum for a while now, that's away from home,” he told Sky Sports. “We've won three and drawn one of our last four, so we're pleased with that. At home we need to correct that on Monday against Bristol City.

“We spoke during the week about having the momentum and not letting last week's result against Blackburn ruin what we've been building, and I thought we came out of the traps today and were excellent.

“We have to just take this in isolation. I spoke before the game, today's now done and dusted, we have to prepare for Monday.

“We have given ourselves a much better chance than before kick-off because we've come here and we've won, but there's lots more work to do. We aren’t going to get carried away, absolutely not. We're right in there scrapping and fighting, and we'll continue to do so.”

“It's a big one for us, but there's nothing done yet, there's still lots of work to do. Nothing's decided.

“I thought we were excellent first half, we defended our box well, we knew we'd need to do that.

The first goal was always going to be crucial in a game such as this, we got ourselves ahead and I thought we could have had two or three in the first half. I thought we were excellent for an away performance.

“Obviously second half it was going to change slightly, the pressure came, but we stood up to it, defended our box incredibly well, tried to get as many big defenders on the pitch as we could because we knew what was coming. But, I'm incredibly proud of the players today.”

Bloomfield was pleased to finally benefit from a set-piece goal: “If I'm honest, we haven't scored as many as what we'd want to, in the time we've been here, we've been scoring open play goals, so hopefully that'll give us a little bit of belief and confidence in back in front of goal from set piece situations.

“Three more games to go and if we can score a couple more from set pieces, that would certainly help.

“He [Mark McGuinness] has been fantastic for us, since he's gone to the middle of the back three. he's been absolutely immense.

He's a boy of big character, big leadership, and I thought he was excellent, absolutely excellent, him with Thomas [Kaminski] behind him, but I think it is a little bit harsh to single those guys out because as a team, as a group, as a football club, the fans were in full voice, the players on the bench behind me were in full voice, encouraging their mates on to a man I thought were immense.”

Do you agree with Bloomfield’s assessment? Have your say here

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