O’Neil accepts red card but bizarrely claims Wolves deserved to beat the Hatters
“The fact that they let Cameron Archer go and didn’t bring in another forward, that decision has been justified.”
In other Aston Villa news, Alan Hutton has determined which surprise Villa Park standout will be retained.
Town then fell down early in the second period, with Neto racing away to score a fine individual goal as home goalie Thomas Kaminski made an important double save, but the Luton keeper was not put to the test after that.
The Hatters leveled the game with a controversial penalty midway through the second half and nearly won it when Chiedozie Ogbene was ruled offside after tapping home from close range.
The statistics showed that Town had the upper hand throughout, with 20 shots, three on target, against the visitors’ three, all of which were on target.
Despite having 55 percent possession and winning 10 corners to one for Wolves, O’Neil said: “I’m extremely disappointed with the first 20, 25 minutes, but we knew today would be a test of mentality and being ready to go.”
“Luton were aggressive, went man for man and we lost every duel.
“Every time it went into our forward players, it bounced off them, every time it went into theirs, it stuck.
“When it dropped into midfield they were faster to it, so I’m extremely disappointed with the first 20, 25 minutes, so much so that we had to change shape and try and get a foothold, which I thought we did.
“We saw off that terrible spell and managed to make the game slightly more even.
“I only saw it back on the iPad when they were doing the check,” the former Bournemouth boss continued.
“It looked like there was a coming together and a little bit of a kick out.”
“I’ll watch it again to get a better look at it, but if he kicked out, I understand the red card.”
“Jean is very disappointed; he apologized to the group and to me, but it’s just something we can’t have.”
“I spoke a lot about trying to fix some of the craziness within the group and that’s an extreme version of it.
“You can’t be successful in football matches if someone does that.
“The fact we leave with a point after that, is one hell of an effort from everyone, but more often than not it someone does something like you’re going to walk away with no points, which we can’t afford to do.”
