For us we just thought hang on they don't need to do this they're 10th in the league
but i think this is the integrity of the championship they actually wanted to to really
win the game and get back into the game and it felt like they they actually won't just go down
so leading into the Blackburn game we didn't know what we would need but we went out to win it now
Blackburn were a side that didn't have anything to play for had some really good players and
were playing a certain way of they were kind of experimenting a little bit they were one
of the first not one of the first but one of the ones to implement the box as you can see
they're the blues here and for us going into a game needing to win it or needing something or
whatever it was a real tough game for us and one that we that we thought and deliberated over so
so long we believe that the fullbacks go so high they occupy your fullbacks you can't
cover around get inside then they played two real high narrow tents which caused you centimetre
players and your two center halves real problems so for us we'd have preferred somebody to go 442
know exactly what we're gonna get but we didn't then we spoke to the players say look these are
the problems we're gonna have and i think we need to change and the player said no we've we've been
really good we've got um 13 points from eight games we've kept more clean sheets in the last
nine games and we have all season we've not conceded much we will we will cope with this
so we work tactically on how we normally do and i didn't feel comfortable didn't
feel comfortable going to the game so the day where we don't normally work tactically
i i said to the player i said look we're going to go with what you feel
but just in case this is what we're going to do so we'll go on to that in in a minute in the plan b
so we work normally in terms of we did mid-block aggressive in terms of what we do deny space not
not allow them to dominate us and not keep people outside and all the good principles we
that we've done and then for 20 minutes they they they just dominated the game but what
we did we scored we scored from a set play um but we were getting dominated so that enabled me then
to make a bold decision and i said we have to change now we'd worked on this we'd gone to plan b
if this weren't happening but what we did then was we matched them up all over we won it up
we were pretty much felt that if we drew it again we were safe anyway so we said let's contain let's
really contain this match the map be aggressive in what we do and that's what we did so on about
20 22 minutes we changed and we matched them now we picked aside to be able to do this which
may seem strange but we then changed our um we had a backfall we matched the map with um with
a box in in midfield so that two midfield players can take the two tens of two tens take their two
midfield players and then we just asked our center forward to take care of of of their um of their
center paths now the game was was a poor game but we ended when we were three in a lead so we won it
and then they we we screwed again before half time and then scored a penalty just
after half time this then they went from literally being the most expansive in possession side
to the most direct side in history so in it it caused us a different problem
so we then had to change go back to what we would we'll go we're going back they brought on
gallagher brother and ears they put central off up top and really went for it very very direct
now for us we just thought hang on they don't need to do this they're
10th in the league but i think this is the integrity of the championship
they actually wanted to to really win the game i get back into the game and it felt like they
they actually wanted us to go down so they went really really direct got a goal
got two so we were three two one 75 minutes and now the momentum had really changed
so we'd had a center half called matty pearson who now plays for henderson's warrior by the
way if anyone knows him that i'd got injured in training in from a bad tackle from cali mcmanaman
and he was told he was out for six to eight weeks he'd been out day days and he came to me and said
two days before the game i i want to be involved adrenaline will get me through i mean it's
it's unfathomable so i said the medical people told me not to do it but i said to him okay if
you want to do it we'll do it she put him on the bench now 75 minutes we were getting bombarded
we couldn't handle the physicality so i put him on and he played and we sorted out the game 3-2
so we went on the 51 points 47 would have kept us up we we ended up in 19th position
and so on and then afterwards matty was at our after after there wasn't a party as such
and was in his phone kit because he literally couldn't take his boot off because it had blown up
to to such a level and that was the group we had mahi had come through us through the leagues um
it meant so much to him and that was the group we had that was epitomized everything
about luton at the time the desire to stay in the championship desire to stay on track
the desire to do things to push yourself to push boundaries and that was the group we had
you