Glyn Hodges has called for our players to take the game to Rochdale from the very first minute on Saturday after a positive second-half at Peterborough.
The Dons host a Rochdale side currently occupying 18th place in League One, but they recently drew at Old Trafford in the Carabao Cup, taking Man United to penalties before eventually losing out.
Glyn’s first game in charge of the first-team ended in a 3-2 loss at Peterborough, but the second-half display – Wimbledon were 2-0 down at the break – offered a real positive.
“Sometimes it’s easier to play when you are 2-0 down,” said Glyn. “The challenge is ‘can we take the game to them from the first minute?’ I’m looking forward to my first home game in charge and hopefully the fans back us, like they did at Peterborough. That was a really enjoyable experience, apart from the result. There are signs there for us, but can we make it a positive weekend?”
“It’s a big week ahead as we have two home games coming up, followed by an away match at Southend. We will be aiming to take as many points as possible. I know people said it was a game of two halves at Peterborough, but even in the first-half Paul Osew knocked one back and maybe Kwesi could have scored. We did have some good play and we could have taken the lead, but in the second-half we showed the spirit to come back.”
The Dons will have Marcus Forss back available again on Saturday after he served a one-match suspension, but Ryan Delaney is ruled out against his parent club. Adam Roscrow has a thigh injury that will keep him out for around four weeks, but Michael Folivi could be back in contention after making good progress from the groin injury that has sidelined him recently.
“Marcus is looking sharp and we’ve done some extra finishing today,” added Glyn. “He’s looking as sharp as he was before his suspension. Michael trained today, but he missed the last bit at the end. He came in towards the end as a precaution, but we will know more tomorrow. I think sometimes you just have to wrap them up in cotton wool, so that they are fit for selection, but he got what he needed out of the session.
“We’ve got goalscorers in there. Marcus is now free from suspension and he’s in a good goalscoring vein. We know what ‘Pigs’ can do, we’ve seen in the past how many goals he gets, but he needs to get some goals under his belt as well. We just have to create the chances and take them. Every day this week we’ve done some defending and we’ve done more today. It’s just refreshing them and working them, something that will be ongoing while I’m in charge.
“It’s been a good week. We had the game on Tuesday so we did not have too many players to train, but we still got some decent work into them. I am just making things clearer with no grey areas, so they know exactly what’s expected of them. We did a lot of work today and we will finish off with some bits and pieces tomorrow.”
Take a look below at Rob Cornell’s full interview with Glyn.