The Bluebirds had headed to Bedfordshire on the back of a six game unbeaten run, winning four, although they had yet to taste success outside of Wales so far this season. That carried on courtesy of Jacob Brown’s second half header, as although City gave away 13 fouls to Luton’s 12, Riza was frustrated with what he felt was a favouritism towards the home side when it came to free kicks being awarded.
Although the former Cambridge United and Trabzonspor forward accepted his side had got away with one after Calum Chambers’ handball in the box went unpunished, Riza was annoyed with the decisions in the build-up to Town’s winner as well, saying: “Apparently it was a handball from Chambo, I haven’t seen it back, so that was a missed opportunity or a mistake from the referee, but the game was fuelled with mistakes as far as I was concerned.
“I thought Luton were given so many little fouls, petty fouls, the whole game, that we weren’t given, that were exactly the same, so it allowed them more momentum in the game. It allowed them to have the ball more and cause us more problems, so that was disappointing. I think the throw-in before their corner, there was no decision made on whose it was. Was it ours? Was it there’s? Luton picked it up, threw the ball and they’ve played on. There were lots of things in the game I felt could have been better officiated, but that’s football and we have to respect that.”
Looking back on his side’s first defeat since September 28, having gone through the whole of October unbeaten, Riza, whose team threatened sporadically once Yakou Meite came on, the ex-Reading forward testing Thomas Kaminski with a looping header, felt that had they left with a share of the spoils it would have been a more deserving outcome.
He added: “The boys are really disappointed. To be undone with a set-play, which we know they’re strong at, was disappointing, but I thought overall the performance wasn’t too bad. I thought we controlled some big parts of the game, but we just didn’t quite click the way we have done recently with our attacking threats. We still picked up good pockets, we still received the ball, pulled the opposition into positions they didn’t like, but just those final moments, we weren’t calculating enough.
“If we had been I think we probably would have created a bit more, but credit to Luton, they got their result and we move forwards. The last 15 minutes of the game we were trying to push for a goal, we just couldn’t find it. We’ve come to Luton, this is a team that is coming out of the Premier League, it’s a tough game, they’ve got top players and I think it was close. If we’d have gone away with a point I think it would have been a fair result, didn’t quite happen.”
Discussion about this post