Ahead of this evening’s meeting with promotion-chasing Stevenage, Johnnie Jackson has spoken about his pride at making our spiritual home a difficult place to come for opposing sides.

Wimbledon have only suffered five defeats out of 21 home games across all competitions this season – an impressive run that our manager wants us to build on in the final quarter of the league campaign.

As part of his preview, Johnnie also discusses his plans for next season, Diallang Jaiyesimi’s fitness and why we can take confidence from our previous results against sides higher up the table.

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WHAT IS THE MAIN FOCUS ON THE TRAINING PITCH AFTER OUR RECENT RESULTS?

We’re looking to cover all the bases. A lot of our focus was on the attacking side but now we’re scoring goals again but we need to tighten up at the back.

We’ve had injuries to key personnel, we’ve had to change formation and been forced into changes. Sometimes it takes a while to gel when you make that many changes. It’s important that everyone feels involved and that they understand the different roles that we want them to play.

WITH OUR INJURIES STACKING UP, IS THERE A POSSIBILITY THAT SOME UNDER-18S COULD GET A CHANCE?

We look at it but a lot of those boys are out on loan. There’s some we could recall but there’s some we can’t. Every deal is different but generally once they go out you have a 28-day window where they can’t be brought back.

What we also don’t want to do is call them back to sit on the bench for a game or two until someone more senior gets back fit. In doing that we’ll have stunted their development. If the circumstances are right and we need the cover, it’s something we’ll need to look at seriously.

INJURY UPDATE

DJ is out of action, he’s picked up a hamstring strain. Harry Pell is being assessed, he’s one we’ll make a late call on. Everyone else came through the Gillingham game unscathed.

HAVE YOU TOLD THE PLAYERS THAT THEY’RE PLAYING FOR CONTRACTS?

We’ve had a lot of internal conversations in terms of looking at where we want to go with things next season. We’re looking at the players who are out of contract and how we want to approach it.

It’s an important part of the season and you don’t want there to be any distractions for your players as well. It’s about having a clear picture of where we want to go with it and sooner rather than later we’re going to have to make moves to get things wrapped up with certain players.

We’re going to have a game pretty much every three days I need the boys to maintain their focus during what’s going to be a testing period for us.

STEVENAGE’S FORM HAS BEEN MIXED IN RECENT WEEKS. IS THAT SOMETHING WE CAN TAKE CONFIDENCE FROM?

They’ve done a lot of good things this season but like every team we’ve come up against, they’ve got vulnerabilities. They haven’t been on the greatest of runs lately, there’s chinks in their armor that we need to exploit.

We’ve had good results against teams at the top end of the league, so we can take a lot of encouragement from that. We fancy ourselves against anyone on our patch.

WE’VE ONLY LOST FIVE MATCHES AT HOME ALL SEASON. HOW PROUD ARE YOU OF THAT RECORD?

We’ve made it a very difficult place to come. I would’ve liked that number to be even smaller if the truth be told. That’s just the way that I am but I think every team knows that when they come to Plough Lane, they’ll be in for a tough game. It was important that we turned the place into a real advantage for us.

PICS: Pro Sports Images and Lucy Dixon