Chance Missed

Goals from Jack Marriott, Danny Hylton and Jonathan Smith gave the Hatters a comfortable-looking victory at Home Park, as they fought back against a spell of dominance for the Greens in the opening stages.

The Pilgrims controlled much of the play in the early goings, and had the ball in attacking areas, but rarely created clear opportunities to test Plymouth-born Christian Walton in the Luton goal. It was a factor not lost on the boss, who wants to see more chances to score in those positive spells.

"We obviously knew that the game today was going to be a difficult match," said Derek. "I thought we started the game very well; we took the game to Luton.

"We didn't really create enough chances. We had the ball in and around the area without making any clear-cut chances. We probably didn't get a break of the ball. Our crossing wasn't good enough today, when we did get ourselves into a wider area.

"We haven't worked their goalkeeper enough. Over the 90 minutes we've got enough players on the pitch who are capable of that. For one reason or another, it didn't go our way.

"Luton had a good number of players in and around that area, where they defended the ball well. When it did fall to us we didn't get a shot off, or we probably didn't choose the right option."

The Pilgrims will look to shake off their disappointment quickly, with another chance to impress their manager coming on Tuesday night, when they take on Reading in the EFL Cup.

"It's very difficult after a defeat to praise anybody today," said Adams. "It's a day where you've got to take collective responsibility, to move forward to the next game. It's a disappointing fact that we've lost our first game of the season.

"We've got an exceptionally difficult game on Tuesday night. We're not going into the game in the top spirit that we'd hope to."