Luton Town FC head to West London to face #BrentfordFC. Their last trip the TW8 saw them concede 7.
Nathan Jones will have mixed feelings before the upcoming game against Brentford. Confident with the performances his team has put in against the stronger opposition in the league, Jones know’s Brentford is a team that can go about hitting him for 6 (or 7) whatever his defensive strategy.
@davidanderson and Ben from @Lutonanaytics had a lengthy chat about Town and their recent progression under Jones to firmly establish themselves as a mid-table team.
Because of this we won't go into depth with this preview but instead highlight how Luton have slipped themselves in with the Championship middle pack.
In a general shot and non-shot xG quality sense, Jones’ team are putting up better numbers than 6 to 7 sides and would need a large slice of consistent bad luck to be dragged into a battle for the relegation spots.
The fivethirtyeight Expected Goals For v Against graph shows Luton Town doing a better job than several teams we are sure to be in trouble. Rotherham are the only team showing genuine performance levels that indicate there could be an upturn in results.
The fivethirtyeight Non-Shot Expected Goals For v Against graph highlights a lack of sustained attacking play around opponents penalty area for Luton. Jones will be aware of this and trust his teams inventiveness at set-pieces and counter attacking situations to act as a foil for improved defensive numbers.
The Expected Points table derived from Expected Goals has finally started moving teams into clear chunks. Swansea’s over-performance in defence is coming out in the wash as the league strongest performing teams is forming a breakaway of four.
Luton has positioned themselves tidily towards the back of the main peloton safe in the knowledge that straggling riders are going to need to do something very special to turn their race around and avoid being dropped altogether
Tactical changesfrom Jones -
In the reverse fixture Luton delivered a bit of a no show out of possession. They did not press Brentford’s backline particularly well, and with the ball at their feet, Mads Bech Sorensen and Pinnock went through the game mostly carefree.
Connecting easily with Raya, Mads Bech as the weak link must be put under closer first touch pressure so that he finds it difficult to play the ball back to Raya or out wide to Rico Henry.
Brentford Team passing network shows good spacing Luton struggled to deal with. The formation Jones opts for is designed to be compressed through the centre of the pitch. Brentford on ball starting points quickly trigger movements to decompress and to be expansive out wide.
Brentford standard 4-3-3
Due to Luton spending so much time in the compressed shape when they do get the ball Brentford are good enough to shrink around them limiting any thoughts of expansion and attacking intentions are easily snuffed out by midfielders or full backs.
Luton went through multiple shapes in the 3-0 defeat.
None of them stopped Brentford in the first phase and allowed the ball to move into middle third too easily. Because of this, Jones could try something different and opt for the practicality of a 5-3-2 which could move into 3-3-3-1 preventing Brentford easily playing out by using 4 to block the high end of the pitch.
The product of the 4-1-4-1 / 4-4-2 systems used is Lockyear (15) and Bradley (5) are narrow CBs and with no positional protection from a right winger doubling up with the right back. Cornick plays as a RWF / Asymmetrical striker leaving the entire right wing open. Bright Samuel recently took advantage of this lapse attitude towards the wings as he was effectively left 1v1 with James Bree for much of the 2-0 defeat.
The vulnerabilities in either system always come back to the spaces down the wings for this team. Luton give up ground between Cornick and Bree as Dewsbury-Hall tries to fill the space Rico Henry or Sergi Canos will want as a starting position.
Bees players have been tireless working within the Tuesday / Saturday schedule so we hope that this unscheduled recovery period can have a positive impact on the squad.
How Jones decides to press Brentford when playing out is going to be key. With Dasilva missing in serving out his ban, Brentford will lose his movements backwards to get onto the ball and his ball carrying from deep areas to disrupt any opponent's plan by taking the ball further upfield. Luton must enact a higher pressing line that forces Raya to go long as often as possible and challenge for the knockdowns and second balls.
If Raya is allowed to play his game and Brentford can spread out across their end of the pitch Luton could find themselves on the end of another big scoreline.