Former Farsley Celtic boss Sinnott took over at Vale Park in November

Matthew Spring's winning free kick was the second costly stoppage-time goal Vale conceded in a week, after Walsall's late leveller on Boxing Day.

Sinnott told BBC Radio Stoke: "After observing things for nine weeks, let's be sure about something, things at this football club have to change.

"Even the wind changes in the second half in Luton's favour."

"So if you're talking about bad luck stories you can go on forever. (Luck) only changes through change so that's what we'll be looking to do in January.

"You've got to be positive, you don't buy into those bad-luck stories but there has to be change.

"I tried to steer away from that before 1 January because you don't want to be demeaning to the people you have here."

It's gone straight in from 35 yards but I'm waiting to see a DVD of the goal, to see how it got in from that distance Lee Sinnott

Sinnott wanted to have another look at Spring's long-range winner before passing judgement on whether his team could have prevented it.

"It's gone straight in from 35 yards but I'm waiting to see a DVD of the goal, to see how it got into the goal from that distance."

Vale had to shuffle things around before the game as Paul Harsley dropped out with illness after the pre-match warm-up and 17-year-old striker Danny Glover made his full debut in place of Luke Rodgers.