Glyn Hodges said he loved the festive fixtures as a player and our manager has his sights set on guiding Wimbledon to vital victories over Christmas.
The Dons travel to Tranmere Rovers on Saturday, before an away match at Bristol Rovers on Boxing Day, followed by home games against Oxford United and Southend.
In his Thursday interview ahead of the match at Prenton Park, Glyn was asked about the importance of this spell coming up.
“It’s massive,” said Glyn. “You always look at Christmas and then all of a sudden Easter is upon you. With these games in quick succession you can do a lot of good with picking up some points. If you get back to back wins then you could be looking at a different league table. Hopefully, we are heading in the right direction. I loved playing at Christmas as they are special games. There’s a different atmosphere as everybody is on holiday and they probably need a bit of football after the Christmas Day. It’s an exciting time. We have a tough one at Bristol Rovers, but we are going to enjoy it and look forward to it.
“Tranmere will be a tough test. It will be different to the Bolton game as I think it will be more of a physical encounter. They’ve had a lot of rain up there, so I’m not sure how the pitch is going to be, but they will be at it and the fans will be baying, so it will be another learning curve for the young boys. Whatever the pitch is like we’ve got to go there, stand up, and be able to perform. Whatever the pitch and the conditions are like, that’s a given as a professional footballer.”
The Dons head into Saturday still with Anthony Wordsworth, Kwesi Appiah, Michael Folivi, Will Nightingale, and Scott Wagstaff all on the injury list, but Glyn reported no fresh concerns before Tranmere.
“There is no one coming back into contention and luckily we haven’t lost anyone, so it’s as it was last weekend. The only downside this week has been that we’ve not been able get out on the grass as we’ve been on the 3G. Apart from that, it’s been a good week.
“I’m hoping that tomorrow we do get on the grass because there are one or two players that do struggle on the 3G. To get the plan right we need everybody there, which we didn’t have today, but we can still work on things. We’ve done some extras with the forwards and work with the wing-backs. We can still get the work done and it’s a good surface.”
Click below to watch the full interview with Glyn. For more information about getting your ticket for Tranmere, see our previous article.