Head Coach Mark Robinson delivered a positive Christmas message to our fans after the postponement of our Boxing Day match.
“First and foremost, keep yourself safe and healthy,” said Robbo. “We’re now going into a run of four away fixtures and all I ask is for you to maintain what you’ve been doing, which has been being incredibly positive, because it has such a massive impact on the players. They absolutely love it! We look forward to seeing you on our away trips.”
Following the cancellation of our game against Portsmouth last weekend, this afternoon’s announcement meant a second successive postponement for the Dons, but Robbo remains upbeat and determined to push on with a demanding schedule ahead of us.
“It’s difficult,” said Robbo. “But you can’t be negative, you’ve got to have positive energy moving forward. We’ve done everything we can to keep football going over the Christmas period, because I know it’s so important to fans. In these times, even more so.
“I’m proud of what the team has done here. Tim (Maynard) and Chris (McConnell) look after these things and have been constantly on to me. Sometimes it’s frustrating, but I’m so glad that they have. The protocols that we’ve had in place have meant we’ve had minimal disruption and within that we’ve been happy to go ahead and get football on.
“We went into the Wycombe game with one centre-back, but we were happy to come up with solutions to play. We would have gone into Sunday’s game with no recognised forward, but we would have come up with solutions.
“It is what it is, but we know we’ve done everything possible, including cancelling the players' Christmas party to testing every single day.”
Even though the postponement of the Charlton fixture means we’ll have gone eighteen days without a game, the situation does give more time for defender Cheye Alexander to come back into contention for our next game – away to Oxford United on December 29.
“Sunday would have come a bit too soon for Cheye,” said Robbo. “I’ll have to check, but it maybe gives him half a chance for Oxford. It would mean minutes, not starting. He was excellent in training today, so that gives him an extra few sessions. Will Nightingale is just a little bit behind Cheye. When we get those two back, I feel we’re in a good place.
“Paul Kalambayi was out there running today and we're looking at mid-February at the moment, but once he gets back running it wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up being a week or two early.”
Watch an extensive Christmas update with Head Coach Mark Robinson from the training ground below, via the link to our official YouTube channel.