The Hatters fell short against the high-flying Royals, who scored two first half goals to condemn Town to a loss on the road, despite Kazenga LuaLua's late consolation.

“That can happen to you at this level, they are a good side and their second goal was a real, swift counter-attack and they scored with a great strike from a set-play.

“That can happen and I’m just a bit disappointed in the build-up to their second goal, we should have been better. We gave the ball away cheaply, let people run off us and that can’t happen because we get punished.

“We had enough of the game to score two goals today, we scored one, we had chances and should have had a penalty. Umpteen amount of crosses and opportunities around the box, it is just we have to show a little more quality in terms of our play.

On his decision with the starting line-up, the gaffer added: “We realise we have three games this week and we want to make the most of the home games, so we’ve had to make sure we mix the side up.

“At half-time we weren’t getting any impact so I had to make changes and they did. We brought on some quality, especially Kiernan and Rhys who I thought were excellent second half.

“Danny needs to find a bit of rhythm and I thought the subs made a good impact, Kazenga when he came on as well. We just need to be a little bit more fluent in terms of what we do and show a little bit more quality. If we had done that, then we would have got something from the game.”