Wally Downes expects his young side to learn from errors

Posted Sunday, September 15, 2019 by PA

AFC Wimbledon manager Wally Downes backed his young side to learn from their mistakes after they were held to a 1-1 draw by mid-table Shrewsbury at Kingsmeadow.

Jason Cummings’ second-half strike cancelled out Ethan Ebanks-Landell’s first-half own goal as the sides shared the points.

“They came out in the second half and were at us,” said Downes, whose side stay in the relegation places.

“It’s like a life line at half-time, you come in and the manager tries to reinvigorate the team and they realise they’re still in the game.

“We weren’t as virile as we were in the first half, and their confidence grows a little bit and although they had a fair amount of shots at our goal in the second half not many of them were very dangerous.

“I thought we took the game to them in the last 10 minutes and there were numerous cries for penalties and handballs and one cleared off the line. Even in the last 10 minutes we did enough to edge it, although they were better than us in the second half.

“We are a young team and they’re desperate to get the home win for the fans, for the club and for themselves. There’s times when they overcommitted and were stretched, but it’s the boundless enthusiasm – we can show them so they can learn from it.”

Wimbledon had the better of the first half and deservedly led at the break after Ebanks-Landell accidentally headed in Anthony Hartigan’s low corner at the near post on the half-hour mark.

Cummings, making his debut for Shrewsbury, looked sharp and found the net after 73 minutes after Ryan Giles’ cross located the striker who slotted into the net from six yards out.

Shrewsbury manager Sam Ricketts said: “I don’t believe that we were good enough first half, because we allowed the game to be too much 50-50 and with one slip or one mistake then you end up going in to half-time 1-0 down.

“I think in the second half we had far more control, there was a time where it was generally just us pressing and attacking, it wasn’t save after save from the goalkeeper.

“But it was just us in their half, when they kept us out we came straight back. We pinned them in pretty well, which was the big difference between the first half and the second half.

“It’s been a steady start to the season.

“We have players like Ollie Norburn coming back from injury, Josh Laurent coming back from injury, Daniel Udoh was also injured at the start of the season. But we are still hugely in a bedding in period.”