The gaffer was delighted to see two of his players get off the mark in Wimbledon colours this evening as we saw off Crawley Town in a 3-2 win.
Goals for Kyle Hudlin and Kwaku Frimpong sandwiched a well-taken strike from Ayoub Assal to make it two wins out of two for the Dons as we secured our progression to the knockout stages of the Papa John’s Trophy.
Naturally our manager was pleased for both Kyle and Kwaku for opening their Wimbledon accounts – with the latter notching his first goal in senior football after progressing through our Academy ranks.
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“We’re pleased for big Kyle Hudlin and young Kwaku,” he said. “You never forget it (your first senior goal)! I’m delighted for him (Kwaku) - I thought he was really industrious on the night, he got up and down that wing and got into some really good positions. He missed a few opportunities so it was nice for him to have an easy finish.
“It’s always nice to get young lads on the pitch. He brings a lot of energy, graft and aggression and we felt he could really get into them.
“He’s (Kyle) had a tricky start to life with us. He’s had the setbacks with the injuries – he didn’t even manage to get a pre-season under his belt because of a previous injury. He’s been up against it, he joined us straight after getting his move to Huddersfield. But he’s back with us for a couple of weeks, training well and I thought that’s the sharpest he’s looked so far.”
Assal’s impact off the bench was also worthy of praise as he turned the game against the 10-man Red Devils – scoring one and assisting our third in what was another bright performance from the forward.
“He was brilliant. He made a really good impact from the bench. That’s two in two for him. When you are bringing people on you want them to effect the game in a positive way and I think him and Josh (Davison) definitely did that. He took up some dangerous positions, took his goal well and put one on a plate.”
Will Jääskeläinen also made his first start since signing for the Dons earlier this month, with the goalkeeper appearing assured in some testing situations throughout the 90 minutes.
“I was really pleased with Will. He was really calm, said Johnnie. “His performance didn’t deserve the goals we conceded but there wasn’t much he could do about them. He used the ball well when it was at his feet and every time he was called upon he was solid.”
We now head into our game against Bradford City on Saturday with a spring in our step and our manager was understandably keen to underline the importance of this evening’s victory as he looked ahead to the weekend.
“I’m really pleased with the win. I thought we warranted it. We had large spells when we played well and scored three decent goals. There’s plenty of positives to take out of the night. Winning is important. We’ve been on a losing run that’s been hurting all of us.
“We’ve got a big game coming up at the weekend. Some of the boys who played tonight have laid a little bit of a marker down to say that they want to be involved and that’s all you can hope for from night’s like these.”
PICS: Ian Stephen (Pro Sports Images)