By Rob Cornell
AFC Wimbledon will be without midfielder Jimmy Abdou for Sunday’s game against Peterborough United, but they have received a double boost.
Abdou is away on international duty with Comoros, but Montserrat striker Lyle Taylor is fit and in contention to face the Posh while defender Darius Charles (pictured) is also available for selection – having declined a call-up for Grenada for now.
“For me it’s an absolute honour of Grenadian descent and it’s something that I would love to do and hopefully embark upon in the future,” said Darius.
“It’s just that at this moment in time, with the fixtures, I feel I would be letting the team down by going and I want to make sure I’m here and part of the fight moving forward as we look to head up the table.
“It was a tough decision to make and I’m gutted that I can’t do it, but I look forward to doing that in the future."
“We’ve had interest and an official letter from Grenada for Darius, which at the moment he’s turned down,” said coach Simon Bassey in an interview to our premium iFollow Dons channel.
“He feels that at the time it wasn’t quite right for him and he wants to fully concentrate on AFC Wimbledon and we’re delighted to hear that.
“It was a big boost to get him back from his injury, when you spend time around the training ground you see the influence that Darius has. He’s a good influence around the place and one that we’re pleased to have and keep hold of.”
“Lyle has trained for the last couple of days, he should hopefully be fully fit for Sunday” added Simon in an extensive update from the training ground now available to subscribers.
“It was a different knock he picked up last weekend to the one that we brought him off with against Luton. There’s no recurring issue there, it was just an unfortunate knock.”
Midfielder Dean Parrett and striker Kwesi Appiah remain ruled out, but Simon also spoke about young midfielder Alfie Egan – who joined National League side Sutton United on loan this week, until the end of January.
“It will be a great experience for him. He’ll get some game time there and really come on leaps and bounds when he’s playing men’s football. We’re hoping for good things from Alfie coming back from his loan,” said Simon.
“It’s a three month loan and I think we’ve got a call back option after 28 days. We’ll be keeping an eye on Alfie and hoping he does really well.”
The full interview with Simon Bassey and the thoughts of Dons centre-back Deji Oshilaja, ahead of Sunday’s game against Peterborough, are available on iFollow Dons.