Ethan Chislett gave an honest assessment of Wimbledon’s display in South Yorkshire last night after promotion-chasers Rotherham provided the benchmark for future improvement.
While our start to the season has been characterised by plenty of entertaining football, the attacking midfielder highlighted other areas where the Dons are coming up short.
“It’s the dark arts of the game (that we need to improve upon),” said Ethan. “If you look at them they were slowing the game down, even at 1-0, and interrupting the play, never really allowing us to find our rhythm in the game. That forced us to play into their hands. We were going long probably far too often.
“It was a difficult game, and if I’m honest I thought they out-worked us, they were physically dominant over us, and that showed in the result. It was a disappointing day for us, but we’ve got to bounce back quickly. We have Burton coming up on Saturday and we need a reaction.
“We had quite an honest conversation afterwards about where we are at and stuff like that. We’ve played 10 league games this season, and it’s quite a good benchmark to assess things. We need to improve upon the non negotiables that I don’t think we are doing well enough at this point in time. If I’m honest I think we need to be braver in and out of possession. We will look at it and improve from it. It’s a necessity to bounce back and get stronger from this."
Though the Dons appeared to have legitimate claims for a penalty early on after a challenge on Aaron Pressley, Ethan was reluctant to point to that as a factor in our defeat.
“I heard the referee say that he didn’t see it because he was too far away from play, but I think we need to stop barking on about officials because at the end of the day we haven’t been given anything. If you look at their players, they weren’t moaning at a single decision that the referee made. For me, I think we’ve got to focus on controlling the controllables.”
After being recalled to the starting line-up last night, Ethan showed flashes of his attacking ability, but he was disappointed not to give our fantastic travelling support more to shout about.
“As a number 10, there are certain things that I need to improve upon. Overall, I think I worked hard, but it was difficult for us to get on the ball today, and that showed in the result.
“The support is always brilliant, and sometimes they were louder than the Rotherham fans, so it was fantastic. I wish they could have gone home with a draw or a win. We need to bounce back and show them what we are made of against Burton.”