Post-match reaction from the boss
Neal Ardley said Wimbledon cannot afford to keep making the defensive mistakes that spoilt a resilient display at Rotherham today.
The Dons managed to hold promotion-chasers Rotherham at bay for 75 minutes before conceding a goal from a set-piece that Neal said was particularly disappointing.
minute it was a reasonably resilient performance, which is important at this stage. I thought that we were inching closer to the target we needed, but we did not do the things we talked about at half-time.th“We knew it would be tough and they would come at us,” said the Wimbledon manager. “They went with a 4-4-2, which they have not played for a while. We did not play as well as we can, but I thought that up until the 75
“We dropped deeper, took the easier options, and we were not brave enough, which cost us the corner. Then from the corner two players lost their markers, one for the flick-on at the near post, and the other at the far post. You cannot afford to do that in this league. In this league you have to defend set-pieces for 90 minutes. We did not do that and we were punished. It is disappointing because we put in a solid enough performance, without looking like we would win it, but we came away with nothing.”
minute.thNeal Ardley added that he thought the Dons had weathered the storm after his double substitution when he introduced Kevin Sainte-Luce and Jesse Darko for Gary Alexander and Rashid Yussuff in the 55
“We thought we did not have enough of an attacking threat at that point and we were starting to look one dimensional,” Neal said. “We brought two players on with pace and as they pushed forward we thought we might have the pace to get something. At that point it was a game that I felt we were more likely to lose than win. I thought for 20 minutes it looked good as we had more of an attacking threat, but we switched off again.”
Dons Player subscribers can watch a full video interview with Neal Ardley on our premium site later this weekend.