The Lounge

[liamwimbo]

Hi John and Rob,

I expect to be at the ground about 1.45 but need to go inside about 2.30 as I am in the Rygas.

Let’s hope we are out of the bottom four by 5pm tonight 🤞

[Windlesham Don]

Four heartstopping sets of 90 minutes remaining to determine the outcome of our season! The permutations are endless, so even for us supporters it is probably best to just concentrate on our fixtures and then see how the chips fall.

I feel that 6 points will be enough and 5 may be enough to see us safe, but whatever happens it is likely to come down to the final day of the season at Bradford.

It goes without saying that today is vital. With Tuesday’s match at Luton being a banker home win, the 5 or 6 points will need to be gained from 3 matches starting today. Lose against Rovers and things become desperate again…

A win today would be massive, but Rovers have shown good away form this season and in Jonson Clarke-Harris they have a striker bang in form – what would we give for one of those…

Our young defensive line will need to remain focused and composed for the full 90 minutes. Our hit and miss midfield will need to battle to their last breath and our strikeforce will need to find some understanding, so far missing from their performances together.

Possibly above all, we will need the Kingsmeadow crowd to lift the players to new heights. Most of our wins this season have arisen by ‘force of will’ rather than from tactical nous – the crowd have responded to the players and the players have responded to the crowd, producing an inspiration and synergy which has been unstoppable at times. Just ask West Ham.

It cannot be understated how huge a win would be today. A draw would keep the nerves jangling and a defeat, well let’s not contemplate that particular outcome until we have to…

COYD!!!

[Singapore Don]

You’re spot on Windlesham. Vital game today- as every game has been for the past couple of months. We have momentum; just hope we can keep it going for four more games. But Rovers are going to be a stern test.

Looking forward to chewing this all over with you and our very welcome Dons from diwnunder. See you all later in the bar (or outside given how wonderful the weather is!).

[Singapore Don]

Great to see Windlesham and Liam before today’s Rovers game – and wonderful (if tense!) to watch it with Rob in the John Green Stand. A beautiful English Spring day with glorious sunshine – sadly darkened by another Dons failure to capitalise in the survival battle with a home win. The Oxford draw last week was a point gained; today’s draw was definitely two points dropped.

And how frustrating it was. Today’s story was a repeat of so many recent games: we’ve just not been good enough in the second halves. If we haven’t scored two goals, as at Scunthorpe, a draw always looks like our best prospect. We’ve shown amazing spirit to pull ourselves back in to survival contention over the past couple of months, but the sorry truth is we’re now running out of steam and losing our too brief dominant killer instinct. We just can’t defend leads as we did in our fight back games against Peterborough and Doncaster. A worrying mental fragility and nervousness has set in.

Still, I’ll be going to Luton as ever hoping we can turn it around again and rekindle our survival fight with three amazing points – dream and believe! See you there Rob and Liam 🤞🤞

[Devon Womble]

Listening in from South Carolina it struck me that while our fragility at defending leads is beyond exasperation, the appalling Sunday league refereeing standards have once again played into the hands of the FA’s general dislike of us… or perhaps I’ve spent too long in the land of conspiracy theories? Nevertheless, analytics will show that over a dozen points have been lost to the men in black this season.
That said, for the first time since his tenure began, I have to blame WD for helping the ref in losing us two points today.
At 60 minutes, it was clear that the familiar pattern of sitting back as the opposition began to suss out our play began to set in. What we needed at that point was a dramatic change of pace to break up the Rovers play… instead, WD made a classic NA mistake and left the subs too late… and quite why Soares was seen as a good one to make was also beyond me.
So that leaves Wycombe (a point at best IMHO); nil point from Luton; and a potential dogfight to the death with a Bradford squad out for a consolation prize. Even if we do beat Bradford, with our GD, I just don’t see four points from nine being enough.
I’m bracing myself for L2.

[onyadon]

It felt more like a loss than another valuable point in the Great Escape bid. Joe Pigott’s impressively taken goal off a sweet Anthony Hartigan pass had the Dons in front at HT and in control, yet they were outplayed in the second half by Bristol Rovers and it was a matter of time before they equalised with a cracking goal 12 minutes from time. It was disappointing to see the Dons’ inability to launch sustained attacks to get that big win. while the young backline is solid, on the evidence of my two games James Hanson and Joe Pigott don’t appear to gel as twin strikers, there was a sameness in the Dons attack, they were easily picked off and outnumbered by the Rovers rearguard. While not a defeat, the point leaves Wimbledon on 45 points on the fourth relegation spot with three games to go. It’s incredibly tight. I reckon two wins could do it for the Dons, maybe even a win and a draw, but the Dons while proving hard to beat, don’t have many goals in them. Every game is a grind. They have tremendous spirit under Wally and Glyn, but attacking is not intuitive for them. Leaders Luton Town are next on Tuesday night. The Hatters haven’t lost in 21 home games this season. It would be unrealistic to expect a win, maybe not even a point, given Luton’s 52 goals at home. The Dons will have to have everything going their way, defend heroically and take whatever chances come their way to come away with something, and then it’s down to Wycombe Wanderers at home next Saturday and a final match at already relegated Bradford Coy on May 4. We may yet rue these dropped points at home to Accrington Stanley and Bristol Rovers in the final washup. But there will be a large and noisy Dons following at Kenilworth Road this week and we just have to hope that some luck goes our way. I shall report back after the Luton match.

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