Craddock admits Hatters need more goals

TOM LEECH

He'd already come on and made an impact, scoring Luton’s third at Hayes & Yeading United, when the home side were caught out with a swift Hatters counter attack that gave Tom Craddock a clean run at goal and a chance to finish off the plucky Middlesex side.

In the final minute, with just his marker to beat, substitute Craddock appeared to be caught in two minds and stumbled over the ball in the penalty area, allowing United to clear and chase an equaliser.

His manager was not impressed.

“Craddock came on and did well… but when he's through on goal, one-on-one with the defender – has he showed enough determination to get a shot at goal and make it 4-2? No,” fumed Richard Money afterwards.

You could understand Money’s frustration as seconds later a long ball put United’s Craig Watkins through and only alert goalkeeping from Mark Tyler foiled the midfielder from grabbing Hayes & Yeading an unlikely point in injury time.

The hard fact was that United should have been put to the sword by any number of Luton chances that were wasted by the Hatters on Saturday afternoon, although to single out Craddock seemed harsh – especially as his strike proved to be the winning one.

The Teessider remains the club’s top scorer – despite being used as a winger at times this season – but admitted: “We haven’t been scoring enough goals as we should be as a team and the strikers’ responsibility is to do that.

“The the manager’s asked us to step up to the plate and hopefully we will until the end of the season.

“I think sometimes we take our foot off the gas, get a little bit complacent. If we want to get promoted we have to cut that out of our game because we’ve been punished at times this season. Thankfully we didn’t (at Hayes & Yeading).

A fine half volley kept Luton’s promotion ambitions on track when he came on for Liam Hatch in the second half but Craddock wants more before the end of the season.

“I’m happy to get on the scoresheet – that’s 11 now but I’m still not happy,” he said. “I should have scored more but I’ve played a lot of games out wide. My goals-to-games ratio is probably one in two.

“I enjoy playing on the left – I see a lot of the ball and face up rather than have my back to goal – and if the manager and coaches want me to play there I’ll play there. I’d rather be on the pitch out wide than sat on the bench.”

With Luton’s abundance of riches up front, Money is still to settle on his ideal pairing but Craddock reiterated the need for everyone to play their part.

He said: “I’ve played with Barnesy (Matthew Barnes-Homer) a couple of times, I did well with Hatchy pre-season and a large chunk of the season I’ve played up front with Kevin Gallen and I think that worked well. So every partnership has something different to offer and it’s up to the strikers to make it work with whoever you play with.

“We have to improve on our home form as everyone knows. We’ve got three home games next and they need to be three wins to put us in contention to get promoted.”

Ahead of Tuesday night’s game against relegation-threatened Forest Green, Hatters remain in the last play off spot, 12 points behind top of the table Stevenage but the striker isn’t ruling out automatic promotion just yet.

“I’ve heard other people say it before, but until it’s mathematically impossible we’re not going to give it up. There’s still a lot of twists and turns left and if you think that you’re comfortable football has a habit of coming back to kick you in the teeth, so we’ll keep working hard and gaining points on the teams above us.”