Johnnie Jackson took the positives away from Wimbledon’s 0-0 draw with Grimsby Town as we closed the gap on the play-off places.
A point tonight combined with an important victory on Saturday has seen us keep pace with the top seven in Sky Bet League Two as we head into the final 10 games.
Here Johnnie provides his thoughts on the performance, discusses the impact of John-Joe O’Toole and provides an update on Omar Bugiel.
ON THE PERFORMANCE…
It takes us a point closer to the play-offs but we came here to win tonight, that’s what we wanted out of it. It’s never that simple against an opponent that’s fighting for their lives at the other end of the division. They made it a difficult night for us and we weren’t at our best.
We had the better moments but ultimately it was important that we didn’t lose. We need to keep racking up the points and see where it takes us.
ON THE SHIFT IN SYSTEM…
I think we’re defending really well. We probably didn’t create as much as I would have liked tonight. We weren’t clinical enough. The best opportunities came from deliveries into the box, we had a couple of headers through (James) Tilley and (Ronan) Curtis in the second-half. I can’t fault the effort to keep the clean sheets. We need to be expansive in possession, braver on the ball and keep improving.
ON JOHN-JOE O’TOOLE…
His experience helps him know where he needs to be. He gets people around him in the right positions. He’s an aggressive, front-foot, defender. He’s good aerially and he wants to go and win his headers and win his duels. He’s really suited to that role and it’s credit to him.
ON OMAR BUGIEL…
He felt his groin in the warm-up which was a blow pre-game. He’s instrumental to what we do. You can see from tonight that he’s really important. We’ll assess how he is further in the coming days.
ON NOTTS COUNTY…
It’s a good game to look forward to. We’ve got four points in the space of three days, which is a good output. We need to take a lot of credit and not beat ourselves up. We had a good result against Notts County here and we’ll be looking to take the game to them.
GRIMSBY PICS: Ian Stephen (Pro Sports Images)