By Rob Cornell
Barry Fuller believes that Wimbledon can use the positivity created by yesterday's experience at Wembley as a springboard to accumulate more league points.
Neal Ardley's men have 21 games remaining in League One this season and next Saturday's match at Milton Keynes offers an opportunity to move out of the bottom four.
Speaking during a post-match interview for iFollow after the 3-0 defeat against Spurs, our captain said: "We've got to be positive, we cannot let this drag our season down. It has been a real high, a great experience, but it is gone now. We had a great day here, it was a difficult game against a big side. We have to dust ourselves down now because we have an even bigger game on Saturday. It's probably bigger than this game for the players, the team, and the club as a whole. Hopefully, we can take the positivity out of this and take it forward into the rest of the season, especially Saturday's game.
"We were up against a top Premier League side on a big pitch in one of the best stadiums in the world. It was always going to be a tough ask, but for 60 minutes we did our jobs. The manager had a game-plan and we worked hard on it in training. We had watched a lot of videos on them. A lot of Premier League sides set-up in the same way as we did against them. You get your banks of four and make it difficult for them, making the pitch narrow. You try not to let them get the balls in from out wide.
"We did that really well for 60 minutes, but they got the goals after that and showed their quality. You have to be patient against these types of sides, if you are too eager they will pick you off. There were times in the game when I felt we had good possession and chances in the game. We hit the bar in the first-half and with a little bit of luck the ball could have hit the bar, hit the keeper's head, and gone in. It didn't go in though, and that's football."
Barry added that yesterday was an enjoyable experience for everyone connected with the club and he said that 17-year-old Anthony Hartigan's late substitute appearance was another positive on the day.
"Everyone is disappointed with the result, but there was no expectation on us," said Barry. "There was not really much pressure on us and it was a free game for us to go and enjoy it. Our fans were singing right until the end and I am pretty sure they enjoyed the day. I thought we did ourselves proud.
"Anthony deserves to be involved in games like these. He has come through the youth team and played a lot of games for us now. This will be a great experience for him, probably the best memory of his career so far. Anthony has a lot of ability and I am pretty sure it will not be the last big game that he plays in."
The full post-match interview with Barry Fuller, plus interviews with George Long and Neal Ardley, are all on our iFollow channel.