The young Dons twice came back from going behind and netted six times, to extend their unbeaten run in pre-season to two games at Carshalton Athletic.
Giant striker Donte Lodge Francis (pictured left above with Tyler Burey) was on target, but it was Ayoub Assal who took the man-of-the-match plaudits with one goal and a couple of assists in the 6-3 victory at Colston Avenue,
Despite a high-scoring victory, Coach Mark Robinson could still see room for improvement. “The first 25 minutes of the second-half was much better and we were pretty relentless as an attacking force in that period," said Mark. "The Fulham performance on Saturday was pleasing, but it's pretty easy to get yourself up for a game like that. Carshalton’s under-18s were a different test and we put it down as a mentality game. Their lads would obviously be eager to cause an upset and we needed to rise to that.
“With our first half performance it was not a case of lack of desire, but the discipline and game intelligence to carry out a fluent game plan whilst remaining secure defensively, but it will come. Despite scoring six our finishing was also not good enough. It cost us a win against Fulham on Saturday, so there is work to do there as well.
"Apart from Tyler Burey, who has been training with the first team, we had a full squad to choose from so we tried a new shape in the first half. The plan was to cause Carshalton lots of problems with our attacking movement. Unfortunately the lads did not put their excellent work from Monday's session into practice and we ended up causing ourselves more problems than we caused them. It was not a very pleasing first half to be honest, but it's all part of the learning process and we’ll come out better for it”.
Carshalton took the lead with a penalty in the 11th minute after a defensive mistake. The Dons equalised on 32 minutes when Lodge Francis hit the bar and Zachary Robinson netted the rebound. Carshalton regained the lead in the 40th minute, direct from a corner.
A change of shape from the Dons at half time saw them start with an excellent tempo and in the 48th minute Lodge Francis equalised from a Jack Currie assist. Two minutes later, the Dons took the lead when Assal finished from an exquisite Jack Madelin pass. Wimbledon then missed a host of clear chances before David Ficsher made it 4-2 from a clever Assal assist.
Thirteen minutes before the end, Bobby Mills made it five from a Robinson assist and two minutes from time Olukayode Osu scored the sixth after another assist from Assal. The Dons failed to keep a second half clean sheet when a cheap penalty was given away in the 90th minute.
The young Dons will have to face Woking without several players this Saturday. They’ll be required for duty with Alan Reeves’ development squad, before going into the under-18s final friendlies against Swansea and Crystal Palace.