By Rob Cornell
Flying midfielder Harry Forrester has turned his focus on Southend tomorrow, after helping the Dons claim a point from their draw at Gillingham.
Harry came up with another vital goal for Wimbledon and would like to get on the score sheet for the first time at home, as Neal Ardley’s side look to avenge a 1-0 defeat at Roots Hall in September.
“We owe them one at our place,” said Harry, in an interview to our premium iFollow Dons subscription channel. “Hopefully we’ll get a decent turn out too because it’s New Year’s Day and we can start the year well, build a bit of momentum, and go from there.”
With Neal having revealed Cody McDonald is playing with a metatarsal injury and fellow striker Kwesi Appiah having suffered a setback with his hamstring, Harry is hungrier than ever to help the Dons climb the table.
“Since I signed it’s been my aim to help Wimbledon get up that league,” said Harry.
“I’ve been in the team of late, which is good. Obviously I got the red card against Wigan, which took me out of the team, picked up a little injury in training, but it’s important for me, whether I’m on the bench, or starting to make an impact in the attacking third of our play.
“That’s what I’ll be trying to do until the end of the season at least,” said Harry, who is on loan from Rangers.
The Dons twice fought back in the second-half, as the game at Priestfield finished 2-2 for the third time in succession. Harry came on as a substitute and his 84th minute equaliser ultimately earned a share of the spoils for the Dons at an important stage in the season.
“To go behind twice and come back shows what character we’ve got in the dressing room."
His three goals for the Dons so far have come on the road, with his two other strikes in victories at Northampton and Bristol Rovers before yesterday’s leveller.
“To be fair, I’m on the edge of the box for set pieces normally. The ball has gone back stick to Deji (Oshilaja) and I saw everyone go towards the keeper. If he heads it back to the keeper he can palm it out to me on the edge, or Deji can head it back to me.
“I took a bit of a gamble and got to the penalty spot and luckily it fell to me. It’s nice to see it go in and I was more concerned about trying to get another goal because we had the momentum at that point, I felt.
“We had them pinned back and to get the second was a sucker punch to them. I tried to get the ball back and go again.”
“We know what we’ve got in the dressing room. Sometimes we don’t really believe it. I think we’ve got some great players in there and we all get on very well as a unit.
“Now we’ve just got to have a bit more self belief in what we do on the pitch and we can get some good results.
“You’ve seen the likes of Plymouth come away from the bottom of the table in the last few weeks, get some good results and climb the league. There’s no reason why we can’t do that.
“We’ve got to build on this platform. We’ve got Southend on New Year’s Day next, which is good for us given how we ended against Gillingham.”
Pic credit: John Marsh (Pro Sports Images).
The full interview with Harry Forrester, the post-match thoughts of Neal Ardley, and extended highlights from Southend, are available on our iFollow Dons channel.