Scott Wagstaff said he’s thriving on the responsibility of leading our young players through a critical stage of the season, as the experienced midfielder gears up to face his former club Gillingham.
This weekend’s fixture at Waggy's old club comes almost a year to the day since a 0-0 draw at Shrewsbury left Wimbledon with a mountain to climb in the League One survival stages as The Dons were nine points away from safety. Despite being in a stronger position this time around, he knows that no one can afford to rest on their laurels.
“I didn’t realise we were that amount of points adrift at that stage,” said Waggy. “I thought it was a good point away at Shrewsbury. At the moment, we are in a good position, but Tranmere will probably be looking at it and thinking they can go on a run like we did. Winning the other night was obviously a big plus for them, but we have to make sure that we do the business now. We have a big one on Saturday and hopefully we can get a point, or even three.
“We need to kick on now and get those wins on the board as early as possible. Then you would like to think that we can relax, once we get to the points that we need, and start playing the football we know we are capable of producing.
“A couple of injuries haven’t helped me, but I feel good at the moment and I want to get another good run until the end of the season now. In the squad we’ve got me, Woody, Pigs, Kwesi, and now Joe (Day) has come in as another older lad, so the younger players know that they can chat to us whenever they need to. When we’re on the pitch, I like to think that I help a few of the lads out. It’s hard when you are out there as you sort of get caught up in the game, but you try to help when you can.
“We have a lot of young lads in our team. Pigs was saying to us that our average age is one of the youngest in the league, so it’s credit to the boys for putting in the performances that they have. We probably haven’t got the rub of the green that we deserved recently, but hopefully that will change on Saturday and we can get the win.”
Waggy praised our supporters for sticking with the team in recent away matches and he hopes to provide a big performance for them at Priestfield Stadium.
“The fans have been brilliant in coming to all the games recently as there’s been a lot of travelling. When we don’t put in a performance we obviously feel it as well. After the Oxford game the fans were brilliant. They still gave us a clap after such a disappointing performance, but they’ve stuck with us through thick and thin. It would be great to give them something to cheer about come 5pm on Saturday.
“Gillingham played well against us (last time we played them) and I think we did really well to hold out for the win. It’s going to be a tough game, I think the last league match they lost was against us. That was a long time ago and they are obviously going to want to get one over on us, especially as we will have a few ex-Gills lads playing, including Callum, Luke, and Pigs. They will be looking to get one over on us, but we are looking forward to it."
Tickets can be purchased in advance, or on the day, to cheer on Wimbledon at Gillingham. See our previous announcement for more details.