Darius Charles said AFC Wimbledon cannot afford another slow start in Sunday's Emirates FA Cup tie against Charlton and he's determined to do his best to help the Dons into the third round.
Coming back from a 2-0 deficit after half an hour against Walsall proved beyond Neal Ardley's men and Darius knows that the mistakes cannot be repeated.
The experienced defender said: "If you let a team go 2-0 up, what more can you expect? It's easy to fight back when you are two goals down. When it's 0-0 and there's everything to play for is when you really have to show your grit and determination. We did not show that enough. We had been fortunate not to concede at Oldham and we did not start (on Saturday) with enough focus and determination. That meant we went 2-0 down. After the first half an hour we dominated and once we changed the shape we had more energy and won second balls. The ball did not quite drop for us and on another day we could have scored two or three.
"We have to make sure when we go out onto the training pitch that we work with a determination we know we are capable of. We have to ensure we go into the Charlton game and really put in a performance that we can be proud of and one that will make the manager and the fans proud too."
Please note that Sunday's second round tie is all-ticket. For more information about buying tickets for this game, please see our previous article.
Darius believes there are positives to take from the overall performances in November, ahead of the important cup tie against League One high-flyers Charlton.
"I don't think anyone would disagree that in the last four or five games the performances have been better, which has coincided with us being better defensively and scoring more goals," added Darius. "I think a lot of our goals come from our discipline and focus, making sure we nail down our jobs, just as much when we don't have the ball as when we do have it. Nailing down those little details allows us to have more possession so that we can get the ball into Harry Forrester, Barchy, and the front men. They are therefore having more touches of the ball in better areas and having more opportunities, which coincides with scoring more goals.
"We have shown that win, lose, or draw, we are together. No matter what, we want to be able to look each other in the eye and be honest with ourselves. We want to show with our performances that we are a team and that we all back each up as team-mates."