Wimbledon aim for a swift return to form tomorrow, when we visit a Scunthorpe side also battling for survival and currently under caretaker management.
The Dons look to recapture the touch that boosted chances of retaining our League One status, following an unbeaten run of four games and four clean sheets. That came to a halt following last weekend’s defeat at home to Gillingham.
Scunthorpe parted with boss Stuart McCall earlier this week and Andy Dawson was placed in temporary charge. Kenny Black has remained as Assistant Manager and Dawson’s former Hull City team-mate and ex-England international Nick Barmby has joined Scunthorpe’s coaching staff, as they bid to bring about a change in their results.
Wally Downes wants his side to eliminate the errors from last week’s game and show resilience, as they focus on rediscovering a winning formula.
Below are quotes from both camps, team news and stats ahead of another important game.
Quotes
Wally Downes -
“We can’t be sure what team Scunthorpe will have out, but all I can do is make sure what we’re about.
"As long as we play how we can play and we’re on to one another, getting our game locked down and error free, that gives us a chance to go and express ourselves and play. We can’t do that the other way around. We can’t just go out and play and forget to do the things we’ve been good at recently."
James Hanson –
“Scunthorpe have had a bit of a bad run. I saw Stuart McCall signed quite a few players in January and they picked up and it looked as if they were going to have a comfortable season in mid-table. With recent results though, they’ve slipped up.
“We’ll be going there fully confident and if we can get the win, we’ll only be two points behind them. It’s really tight and we can’t afford to lose against teams around us. It’s going to be a good game,
“Like the gaffer has said, maybe we’ve come away a little from what we’ve been doing, especially last week when we were one-nil up and we were playing really well. Then we made a couple of mistakes and went away from the game that had been working for us in previous weeks.
“All we’ve worked on this week is what we’ve done best, getting the results and hopefully we can continue to do that at Scunthorpe.”
Andy Dawson -
“We’ve watched plenty of Wimbledon matches. They’ve been on a fantastic run of form, are organised, well drilled and can hit you quickly if you’re not prepared and organised.
“It really is all about us though, our plan and how we can execute, and having the confidence in the ability that we have in abundance to go and do that. Throughout 90 minutes of football, not everything goes your way. You stick to the plan, to the process and the result takes care of itself.”
Team news
Will Nightingale is ready to be pitched back into action for Wimbledon, after putting a knee injury behind him.
However the match will come too soon for Kwesi Appiah and Deji Oshilaja. Kwesi played and scored on international duty for Ghana in midweek, but Wally said he’s not fit enough yet to be considered and the same applies to Deji.
Scunthorpe have no fresh injury worries heading into the match, with Kevin van Veen returning from a two-match suspension, and Tom Pearce and George Thomas back from international duty.
Josh Morris and Jordan Clarke are back training, but will still be out of action for an unspecified length of time. Ryan Colclough (knee) is out for the remainder of the season. Rory Watson (arm) also looks likely to be out for the rest of the campaign following surgery last month. Matthew Lund is out until April, after a clean-up operation on a knee problem.
Previous meetings
Scunthorpe took all three points on their visit to the Cherry Red Records Stadium in mid-September of last year, following a 3-2 victory.
Wimbledon’s recent record at The Iron though is pretty decent. The two clubs drew 1-1 on the opening day of the 2017/18 season. Earlier, in 2017, The Dons secured an important 2-1 victory.
Form guide (last six, starting with the most recent)
Scunthorpe United – LLWLLD
AFC Wimbledon - LWWWDL
Last time out
AFC Wimbledon 2, Gillingham 4
Rochdale 3, Scunthorpe United 1
Top scorers (All competitions)
Scunthorpe United – Lee Novak (11 goals)
AFC Wimbledon – Joe Pigott (13 goals)
Guide
Key information for Wimbledon fans making the trip to support The Dons can be found via Scunthorpe United.
Commentary
If you can’t make the trip to Glanford Park you can keep up with all the action from our Radio WDON team, who will be providing full match commentary via our iFollow Dons platform.