Glyn Hodges felt that his players showed Oxford too much respect in the first-half today, but he was pleased with the second-half response from his side.
Speaking after the 2-1 defeat that came after Joe Pigott's equaliser had given Wimbledon hope of earning a positive result in the final game of 2019, Glyn said: “They are a good team. We knew that with these two games, Bristol Rovers away and Oxford at home, that we were taking on two promotion hopefuls. With the way that Oxford played today you can see that. They were too good for us today, but I’m really proud of the players and the way that they went about it.
“I just thought that we had sat back a little bit (in the first-half), they had a lot of the ball, so in the second-half we worked to get the wing-backs a bit higher and we wanted to get further up the pitch, even with our back three. Sometimes we give teams a bit too much respect and the way that they were popping it about you do naturally drop back, but I thought we were on the front foot in the second-half. We got a great goal and we caused them problems.
“We stay in games and we wait for opportunities. We created one or two in the first-half when we got great crosses into the box, but you can’t give away the goals that we did today. You can’t give any team goals like that, certainly a team as good as them. When they scored the first goal it put a spring in their step and they became good players, so it was pleasing to get the equaliser straight after half-time. We went to toe-to-toe with them in the second-half, but another poor goal gave us too much to do."
Glyn praised the support that our fans showed for the team, really helping the players to make a game of it against difficult opponents.
“They are proud to wear the shirt and we have a great crowd here that really get behind us," added Glyn."We want to make sure that we give them something to shout about. The effort that the players put in is a given and we are representing the club, so we put those demands upon ourselves. Unfortunately, we came up short today, but credit to them, and we will just go again. The challenge in these three games over Christmas was to play at an intensity with high numbers in terms of distances covered and it would give us a chance to win games.”