Glyn Hodges summed up his frustration after Wimbledon let a point slip through their fingers by conceding an injury-time goal just seconds after scoring the equaliser.
Speaking in his post-match interview after the 2-1 home defeat versus Crewe, our manager said: “What’s frustrating is that this has happened more than once this season. We have worked on it, we have showed them what to do, we have spoken about it, but it just goes out of their heads. We have got a problem as people are not learning key lessons. You hope they take it in. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, and it’s not consistent enough. That’s hurt us today.
“The players are giving us everything on the pitch, but they are making elementary mistakes that we’ve covered and covered. It looks like we’ve got to cover them again. It’s disappointing that we can’t move on as we have to go through old ground as the mistakes keep reappearing. We have to be able to trust that they can do the job when they go out on the pitch. They can do it, but switching off is proving costly.”
Glyn felt his side got better as the game wore on today, particularly after four substitutions in the latter part of the game.
“I think the response from the team was good, we were not at it as we were on Tuesday, probably due to tired legs, but we freshened it up by making a few changes, and all of a sudden we were a different team,” said Glyn. “We were in the ascendancy, we got the goal, and we could have had another with the chance for ‘Sedds’. When we scored I was thinking, ‘there’s only one team gonna win this’. We were dominating, we had energy, we were running all over them, and the last thing you would expect would be for them to score straight from kick-off.
“In the first-half we didn’t do enough on the ball, we gave the ball away so cheaply, and it was a bit like Sunderland. We got better though and we grew into the game. It was late when our goal came, but I was thinking we would take a point, and I didn’t expect the sucker-punch at the end.”
The picture above (taken by Matt Redman, Pro Sports Images) shows Ryan Longman striking Wimbledon’s equaliser at Plough Lane today.