Striker Sam Cosgrove and goalkeeper Nathan Broome both come into the squad for Saturday’s South London derby at The Valley.
The Deadline Day duo weren’t registered in time for Tuesday’s 2-2 draw at home to Shrewsbury Town, but are available for the short trip to Charlton this weekend, along with defender Paul Kalambayi, who makes his return after injury.
“Sam (pictured above with Robbo) has been great since he’s come in,” said Set Piece Coach Andy Parslow. “I’ll be honest, when I heard we were in the market for a striker I asked, 'please can we have someone who is 6ft 3!' In the end, we got someone who is 6ft 5 inches, so that’s handy!
“I had a meeting with him earlier, going through what we do from set-pieces, for and against, and where I see him fitting into that. We also talked about what we'll look to get from him in an attacking perspective and how he can help us defensively as well. It’ll be good to get him involved on Saturday.
“He’ll be in contention as he trained really well today. We split the group, in terms of recovery and training. The finishers and those that didn’t play on Tuesday night had a full session. The starters and those that have played a lot of football recently had more of a recovery day, so we can make sure that we’re fresh for Saturday.
“PK is back in training and in contention for Saturday. He’s looking good, he’s looking sharp. His personality around the place is so important for all the players. He’s a real energiser and he holds players to account. He maintains standards and it’s been great to have him around again.”
We won at The Valley back in August in the Carabao Cup, on route to our best run in the competition since our return to the Football League. Paul Osew finished off a superb team effort by The Dons, the solitary goal of the tie. Since then, Johnnie Jackson has taken charge of Charlton, with our former striker Jason Euell as his assistant. Jason, who played for Wimbledon FC and AFC Wimbledon, attended our game in midweek.
Mark Robinson celebrated his first year in charge of Wimbledon earlier this week, and it also marked 12 months since Andy became a member of Robbo’s staff. A key achievement since then has been turning us into one of the top sides in all four divisions for scoring goals from set-pieces. Conceding at the other end from set pieces has also been kept to a minimum.
“It’s been really good,” said Andy. “It’s been a fantastic experience so far. I feel as though we’ve progressed as a collective and we’re continuing to do so. We’ve been learning as we go and trying to make incremental and gradual improvements. It’s something we’ll look to try and continue to do.”
Get further insight from our Set Piece Coach Andy Parslow below in an extensive interview via our official YouTube channel.