David Artell admits late win at AFC Wimbledon was not ‘vintage’ Crewe

Posted Sunday, December 20, 2020 by PA

David Artell didn’t see the true Crewe but was delighted their climb up League One continued with a late 2-1 win over AFC Wimbledon.

Oliver Finney’s injury-time winner made it three victories on the spin for Alex and five unbeaten.

Artell’s side have safely negotiated nine successive weeks with midweek games and the Crewe boss was delighted with a late show that lifted them to ninth.

“I don’t think anyone saw that ending coming,” Artell said.

“We were in control of the game at 0-0 and then we got the goal, but that goal affected us more than it affected them. We stopped passing the ball and Wimbledon are a good team, they seized on that.

“It’s a really tough place to come and at times we didn’t deal with it well, but some of that was down to Wimbledon.

“I can understand the lads starting to tire and feel the effects, but then we came out of our shell again when they scored so maybe it is more mental.

“But take nothing away from the boys that’s three wins in a week and it wasn’t vintage us.”

The visitors had the better chances in the first half, with Owen Dale twice dragging shots wide and Finney volleying over the bar after meeting a Harry Pickering cross.

The breakthrough finally came on the hour mark when Finney fed skipper Pickering down the left and Mikael Mandron bundled in his fifth of the campaign.

Wimbledon finally came to life in the closing stages and had gilt-edged chances to grab a point late on.

Will Nightingale headed over while unmarked and Steve Seddon saw a shot blocked, before Ryan Longman thought he had rescued it with a leveller right at the end of normal time.

But Finney slotted the decider after Chris Porter nodded down and Alex climbed to ninth.

The Dons are now without a win in four and to his own chagrin, manager Glyn Hodges believes they’ll have to sweat the small stuff to improve on their current position of 15th.

“It was frustrating because defending is something we have worked on and something the players are aware of, but we have to revisit defending and I find it a bit boring,” said Hodges.

“If you don’t understand that you have to do certain things at certain times it will make life difficult.

“We huffed and puffed a bit but we looked a bit leggy, we made changes and freshened up and bit and we looked a different side so I am pleased with the reaction.

“We needed the effort to come from a goal down and score, and to score a goal like Ryan (Longman) did, I was thinking we were going to go on and win it, there was only one team going to win it.

“I didn’t expect the sucker punch and it is tough to take.”