Match report
The Dons’ third draw in a row, and their second consecutive goalless stalemate, saw them extend their lead at the top of the Blue Square Bet Premier – but the manager most pleased with this result would have been Crawley Town’s Steve Evans. AFC Wimbledon are now four points clear but have played four more games than their rivals from West Sussex.
Terry Brown didn’t have the ideal preparation for the visit of third-placed Luton Town. First Lee Minshull was ruled out for another month after his third injury of a stop-start season that’s been more stop than start. Then came the news the Dons boss was dreading: Brentford needed Chris Bush for their league game on Friday night, so he wasn't available to play.
With Andre Blackman training with Oldham, this left Brown without a recognised left-back – hardly ideal when Luton’s right-sided midfielder Claude Gnapka is one of the division’s form players. The Wimbledon manager opted to move right-footed centre-back Fraser Franks across to fill the vacant position, with Ismail Yakubu returning to partner new signing Jamie Stuart. Kirk Hudson had recovered from the obligatory club virus and started in a wide right attacking role, with Luke Moore on the other side of Danny Kedwell.
The first half-chance of what turned out to be an almost chance-free half fell to Sammy Moore with almost 15 minutes on the clock, but his scuffed shot from a half-cleared corner was always going wide, and Franks could do little other than prod it wider.
Both sides had started quite scrappily, taking it in turns to give the ball away at will. Luton overhit several passes that were meant for Amari Morgan-Smith and Gnapka; the Dons took the opposite approach, mostly underhitting their passes. Both teams seemed to struggle to control the ball on what appeared to be an uneven surface as the rain started to swirl into their faces.
Matthew Barnes-Homer made a mess of the only decent opportunity he had to give Luton the lead when he shot well over after Gnapka’s low cross into the box found him just 12 yards out. A Hudson effort tested the reflexes of Hatters keeper Mark Tyler when Kedwell set him up with an accidental header after Zdenek Kroca’s perfectly timed tackle on the edge of the box upended him. Other than that, neither side looked overly capable of scoring.
Morgan-Smith then had to be replaced by Alex Lawless when the Luton No.8 came off second best after a block tackle by Sam Hatton. The substitution of a left-sided, attack-minded player for one who had made his name at York as a full-back seemed to signal Luton’s intentions, at least for the first half.
However, with 10 minutes remaining in the opening period, the Dons seemed to go into self-destruct mode. First Stuart made a horrible hash of a routine clearance, and Hatton had to get him out of a hole. Then, as the Dons allowed Danny Crow space at a corner, Kedwell blocked the former Cambridge man’s volley on the edge of the six-yard box. Yakubu got his bearings all wrong and ducked under a long ball, allowing Barnes-Homer the half’s clearest sight of goal, but although his powerful shot was on target, Seb Brown turned the ball away for a corner.
Mulley relieved some of the self-inflicted pressure when his sharp, angled drive nearly deflected in off Kroca, but that was the nearest the Dons came to scoring. The relief was only temporary, and Brown then did superbly to tip away Andy Drury’s 25-yarder as Luton ended the half strongly.
That, though, was nowhere near how strongly they began, and finished, the second half. Whatever Richard Money said to his players at half-time, it clearly wasn’t “more of the same, boys” –Luton tore into the Dons like men possessed, knowing that a win would send them top. The Dons certainly didn’t help themselves, apart from a Steven Gregory drive that flew narrowly over.
For the first 20 minutes of the half Wimbledon were under a constant barrage as Luton threw everything at them, helped in no small part by the Dons’ failure to keep the ball. Gregory, Hatton, Yakubu and Mulley, who had impressed with his exceptional work rate in the first half, surrendered the ball far too easily and far too often, sometimes within yards of their own goal. Yakubu and Brown made a dangerous hash of a simple back-pass, and Mulley beat three players in his own half before tamely offering the ball to the influential Drury, who was starting to live up to his billing as the best player in the division.
That Luton failed to make the most of their possession was down to some fantastic goalkeeping by Brown and some last-ditch tackling by the tenacious new boy Stuart. Shortly after Jason Walker had replaced the ineffective Crow, the striker on loan from Barrow got on the end of a Gnapka cross after Franks had misjudged a cross-field ball from Drury, and though Stuart blocked the effort it sat up invitingly for Barnes-Homer by the penalty spot – but Brown made a superb stop to deny the former Kidderminster striker what appeared to be a certain goal.
George Pilkington put a free header wide from one of Drury’s dangerous corners, and Barnes-Homer was denied by Brown before Walker had two quick-fire chances to put his side ahead. Yakubu again misjudged a high ball, allowing Walker to nip in behind him, turn and find himself 10 yards from goal with just Brown to beat – but the cameraman on the gantry behind the Kingston Road End found himself with a ball aiming straight for his face. Walker then did well to control a high bouncing ball, but Brown brilliantly raced out and got both hands to a lob that would surely have ended up in the back of the net.
Just after the hour the Dons made a change of their own, and within 30 seconds Christian Jolley should have given the home side the lead: Luke Moore’s cross from the left picked him out superbly, but the eight-goal wide man’s header was off target and flew wide. Tyler was for the most part underworked, but did well to keep out Hatton’s 30-yard grasscutter of a free-kick and then denied Jolley when his mis-hit effort, stumbled into as the last of a series of step-overs unbalanced the Dons sub, seemed as though it would wrong-foot him.
Drury then hit the bar with a long-range effort of his own, and despite another series of corners that the Dons did well to repel, the visitors couldn’t make the breakthrough, and the final whistle brought a fascinating, intense but scoreless encounter to a close. Another well-earned point for the Dons it may have been, but one win and one draw from Crawley’s four games in hand would now be enough to see the Dons’ tenure as league leaders come to an end.
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