Emil Riis scored a double in the first half, condemning the Hatters to a first loss in six matches and the gaffer wasn’t pleased with the manner of defeat, as he reflected post-match.

“We didn’t really look like scoring today, I have to be honest. We didn’t do the basics well enough, there was nothing in the game and then we have a chance to clear it on the edge of the box, we don’t.

"We tried to be clever which happened four or five times today, and although I’m not sure he means to score from there, that was a big moment. Then they have the penalty just before half-time, with two of our players going to ground, it was cheap defending and that is what cost us.

“We were a mile off today, Jones continued. “The goal was maybe fortuitous, we could have done better with the penalty but we weren’t at our levels today. Preston contributed to that, I thought they were excellent and they done to us what we usually do to teams, which is the sad thing. We haven’t had a performance like that for a little bit but it brings us back down to earth.”