Luton Town 2-1 Bristol City: Hatters good form continues with Robins victory
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Elijah Adebayo's winning goal was his 12th of the season for Luton Town
Luton Town moved up to 10th in the Championship after beating Bristol City at Kenilworth Road to earn their fourth win in six league games.
Despite being the better side in the first half, Bristol City failed to create many clear-cut chances and were made to pay when Tom Lockyer headed home shortly before half-time to give Luton the lead.
Andreas Weimann levelled 11 minutes after the break as he calmly finished after great work by Antoine Semenyo.
But Luton's top-scorer Elijah Adebayo bundled in the winner after rising highest from James Bree's free-kick.
The Robins failed to win away for the seventh successive time and remain in 16th place.
City looked good for much of the first period as they had the better of the possession, but a Chris Martin header over the bar was the sum of their attacking efforts.
Luton had not registered a shot on target until Lockyer's goal - his first for the Hatters since joining from Charlton in September 2020 - after Bree swung in a cross after a short corner routine.
The Hatters started the second half brightly, but it was City that struck next as Semenyo superbly set up Weimann after controlling a high ball midway in the Luton half, drawing the defenders and playing an excellent pass with the outside of his foot to release the Austrian.
City should have gone in front four minutes later when Cameron Pring forced a superb save from James Shea from the edge of the box before Bree claimed his second assist as Adebayo scored his 12th of the season.
Substitute Nahki Wells could have earned at least a point for the visitors with two late efforts but he missed the target on both occasions.
The second chance came in stoppage time when Weimann headed across the face of goal but the Bermuda forward could only divert the ball into the side netting.
Luton Town manager Nathan Jones told BBC Three Counties Radio:
"Performance-wise we were a mile off where we need to be, it's probably one of the worst performances.
"Credit to Bristol City because they must have contributed to that in terms of how they played, but we were a mile off.
"Championship wins, Championship points are so hard to come by, you have to do so much for them and tonight we just ground it out because we were nowhere near our fluent best, nowhere near our energetic best, our aggressive best and that showed.
"We really did look lacklustre, but I'll take the three points."
Bristol City manager Nigel Pearson told BBC Radio Bristol:
"It's a reoccurring problem for us and that is that we continue to be lacking discipline at set plays, and that's the biggest problem for us because we conceded two again tonight in a game where we've created some great opportunities, dominated the game and come away with nothing.
"When you're having to score two goals every game to get a point it's hard work.
"I don't think they caused us too many problems in open play, that's the problem, so it's the same old story that's occurring and we've lost a few players recently so we're going to have to go again with the same group of people.
"It's our Achilles heel, it's causing us too many problems and you can practise it all you want, but unless players are prepared to stick their head on the block, that's where the problem is."