Terell Thomas is backing Wimbledon’s home-grown talent to continue to shine, as we fight to retain our League One status this season.
The summer signing, from last season’s champions Wigan, believes centre-back partner and stand-in captain Will Nightingale and Academy produced winger Tyler Burey have the abilities to help the Dons beat the drop.
“Tyler made a good impact,” said Terell after his return to Charlton on Saturday, where he began his senior career. “He’s only young, at 17, but when he came on he showed what he can do. He really made an impact down the right. He earned a few corners and he tried to get crosses in and he put on a good show and did really well to make an impression on the manager and our fans.
“Will is most definitely growing into the captain’s role. He’s the type of person, whether he’s wearing the arm band or not, he’s still the same. He’s still commanding, he’s still telling players where to go and you know that he’s there. For me, it’s just something around his arm as he does a captain’s role regardless. We all try to play a captain’s role, as in trying to tell people what to do, but it’s really good he has got the captaincy.”
Terell came back into the side at a time when the Dons were deprived of the services of fellow central defenders Deji Oshilaja and Rod McDonald. He remains resolute in trying to put matters right when the Dons travel to Adams Park this weekend to face Wycombe Wanderers.
“We’ll work more on how we want to play,” said Terell. “We did well throughout the game in keeping our shape, but the two goals we conceded (against Charlton), were maybe down to a lapse in concentration or we just didn’t do things correctly as a team. I think we’ll be a bit more resilient in what we’re trying to do and stop goals going in against us.
“Obviously I feel good to get the minutes under my belt, but from a team perspective it’s a bit frustrating that we didn’t get a result out of the game. For me, the first one was a definite sending-off as it was a bit rash. He did his best to level things up with the second one.”