ANGRY AITOR GOES POTTY AT HIS BLUES
AITOR Karanka questioned his Birmingham players’ effort after their awful home form continued with defeat to Luton.
Dan Potts scored the only goal to sentence Birmingham to an 11th home game without a win, less than 24 hours after City chief executive Xuandong Ren said Karanka had the ‘100 per cent’ backing of his board.
Defeat leaves Blues with one victory in their last 12 Championship outings, with three points out of 36, to lie second from bottom of the table, a point from safety.
And the manner of yesterday’s defeat saw Karanka call out his struggling side.
“The effort concerns me because we knew Luton were good at long balls and second balls and when they won every second ball it means they had more effort than us,” he said.
“We showed the players the set-pieces and throw-ins (before the game), yet they scored the goal from one throw-in – every single corner they headed the ball.
“So that is why I talk about the effort. They wanted it more than us.”
Regarding the vote of confidence from Ren, Karanka said: “I know how much we trust each other. He knows I am trying to do my best.”
Luton entered the game with a three-match winless run, but created the first chance when James Collins beat George Friend to a long pass from Tom Lockyer but could only lob into the side-netting.
Blues’ only chance of the opening half-hour was a poor shot by Jeremie Bela that bounced well wide after Kristian Pedersen’s cross was headed into the danger area by Ivan Sanchez.
And Luton took a deserved lead after 31 minutes.
Blues failed to deal with a long throw-in from Harry Cornick on the left, Neil Etheridge made a superb save to block Collins’ close-range shot on the turn, only for Potts to head home the loose ball for his first goal since 2019, on his 150th league appearance.
Luton remained the better team and Jordan Clark forced Etheridge to tip away a left-footed drive, before Potts headed wide from Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s corner.
Birmingham’s first effort on target came seven minutes after the break when Gary Gardner’s stooping header flew straight at Simon Sluga.
It was Luton who had the next chance when Sonny
Bradley sent an overhead kick wide after Blues struggled to deal with another long throw from Cornick.
But Bradley’s miss did not matter, with Luton manager Nathan Jones believing the better team won.
“I felt it was deserved. You’re never totally comfortable but I felt we restricted them to very little,” he said. “It was a scrappy game that lacked a bit of quality but I felt any chances that were had were had by us.
“We were a bit disappointed not to go in further ahead. We then had to do the basics and I thought we did them really well in the second half.
“We had a tough January with four away games on the spin. It’s nice now to back up our performances with points.”