Neal Ardley said his players cannot afford to feel sorry for themselves after another good performance ended in defeat against Sunderland.
Despite dominating for long spells, the Dons were on the receiving end of a second home loss in just five days.
In his post-match interview for iFollow, Neal said: “It will be in the record books as a 2-1 defeat, it will not be in there saying that we played well. I just said to the players, ‘let us not feel sorry for ourselves’. We are a really good team, we have to stick to what we believe in. We have to keep doing it. If we keep doing that we are going to have to be really unlucky to keep getting the results we’ve had in the last two games.
“We were really good at Fleetwood, we should have beaten Coventry, we got a great point at Barnsley, and we should have at least got a win and a draw from the last two games. We cannot moan about it, we cannot claim we were unlucky. The only thing we can guarantee is how hard we are going to work and how much we try to score goals. We just need to add that little bit of composure and quality to make sure we finish chances off and the result will take care of itself.”
Neal felt that another key decision went against Wimbledon today with the officials failing to spot a handball on the line from Bryan Oviedo.
“I’ve seen a clip that shows it was a clear penalty,” said Neal. “For some of this season it hasn’t gone our way: the penalty shout against Coventry was proven to be afterwards, the offside at Barnsley was proven to be onside, and today another penalty shout that should have been given.
“My job is to try and win games of football. Obviously, we looked at a lot of stuff from last season that we wanted to do better. I think in all the games so far we’ve sent a team out that has produced good performance levels this season. My message to the team beforehand was to have a right go at them, to play at our tempo and attack them, ask them if they wanted to play at our tempo. Certainly for the first half, we did that, and for spells in the second-half too. We had enough chances to win the game, but unfortunately their quality showed in the end.
“I thought they would have a spell in the second-half, their manager got them at it in the second-half. I knew that would happen because we were too dominant in the first-half. You try to ride out those spells, take your chances to make it two, and win the game comfortably, but it did not happen. Credit to them because they’ve got a winning mentality and they’ve shown that so far.”
Neal’s full interview is available to watch on our iFollow channel.