Paris Maghoma bolsters our midfield options for the visit of Crewe to the Cherry Red Records Stadium in League Two tonight.
The Brentford loanee comes back into contention after we showed plenty of fighting spirit throughout in the 2-1 victory at Rochdale on Saturday.
“Paris missed one game due to suspension, totting up the bookings, but he’s available to us again,” said Johnnie Jackson. “It’s nice to have that extra option in midfield to be able to choose from.”
As well as Alex Woodyard completing his first 90 minutes since his injury lay-off, Johnnie praised the resilience of defender Lee Brown after he came through a particularly difficult time to play a part in the win at Rochdale.
“I’m very pleased with Browny’s output,” said Johnnie. “The recent illness that he had really knocked the stuffing out of him. He needed hospital treatment as he was really poorly. His lack of training was a concern going into the game. Part of the reason why we played him where we did, with his experience, was that he’s more than capable of playing in that position anyway. He did great and got through the 90 minutes and felt good. He seems to have come through any issues that he had there and that’s him moving forward now.”
“We’ve got to be really careful with Woody. The temptation now that he’s back is that you just throw him in and he plays every minute of every game, as long as he’s performing. We’re going to have to manage that situation really carefully, because we probably brought him back quicker that we would have liked. In an ideal scenario, we’d have wanted to have built him up more steadily than we were able to, but obviously it is needs must. What’s important to me is that now he is fit, he stays fit. That’s my job to manage the situation really carefully.”
Further power in the Dons engine room is building though, with the emergence of league debutant Kwaku Frimpong, plus George Marsh is recovering a lot quicker than first thought from an ankle injury.
“Marshy has come on really well,” added Johnnie. “I saw him out on the grass today and had a good chat with him. He’s feeling good and pretty much recovered. It’s just those last few steps of rehab that he needs to go through now. I think we’ll have him back real soon for us.
“It was a difficult spot for young Kwaku to come on and make his league debut in a tight game where you’re defending the lead at Rochdale. The opposition are piling it on, injury time is being added, but I sent him on to try and help us see the game out. It was a show of faith from us, but he’s earned that by going out on loan, getting that exposure to the senior game and by us seeing that in training as well.”
You can see the full preview with Johnnie Jackson below, ahead of this evening’s match with Crewe Alexandra, via our official YouTube channel.