Wally Downes confirmed that it’s too early for Anthony Wordsworth and Nathan Trott to be considered for first-team selection.
Ahead of Wimbledon’s first away match of the season against Fleetwood, our manager updated us on the fitness of Wordsworth (achilles tendon) and Trott (groin).
“Nathan has missed about 10 days now, but he’s been back doing some handling and diving today so hopefully he won’t be long,” said Wally. “Woody is doing a lot of work on the bike and running. It’s better for us to give him the time to be 100 per cent, rather than having something flare up and irritating him.”
Apart from those two, Wally reported no fresh injury concerns, and he added that he’s been working hard on reinforcing a ‘nastier’ edge after the opening day defeat against Rotherham.
“It’s just a case up upsetting a couple who are not going to be playing,” said Wally. “Everybody has worked hard this week and I have no problem with that side of things. On Tuesday I worked them hard and it was on the nuts and bolts of the game: throw-ins, free-kicks, defending set plays, stuff that has a great effect on the game. Sometimes not everyone sees that side of the game. If we are stopping teams from having comfortable possession from throw-ins it breaks up their game. I thought they (Rotherham) had it too easy on Saturday.
“We had opportunities to do things from set plays when we could have been bright and alert, but we didn’t do that, so we need to be as cohesive as we were last season. Everybody needs to know what they are doing and everybody needs to be doing the same sort of things, and within that framework play good football. We just didn’t do the nasty side of the game well enough in the first-half on Saturday.
“The second-half showed that we can compete with teams in this league, but we know we’ve got to be bang at it all the time. We have to get into that mode of coming out of the traps and knowing what we are doing. We have to know our jobs, know where we have to be, and how we play. The message hasn’t changed from me. We played well in the second-half on Saturday, but we’ve got to be doing better than that, even though I know they are a good team, and they will be up there. Our performance has to be better than it was in the first-half.”
For more of Wally’s interview ahead of Fleetwood, take a look at the video below.