Five games is a long time in football

 

Ok that is not really a phrase you here used much in the football world, but for Wimbledon it is as truer saying as any since the turn of the year.

I have recently been recovering from a chest infection and Saturday was the first time I had watched a league game at Plough Lane since our last-minute loss to Doncaster over a month ago.

I was concerned with the comments of Johnnie after the Bolton defeat as what I had watched compared to what he described really didn’t match up, however he has proven to be right as the performance in the second half against Bolton seems to have been a launchpad to the recent uptake in form. I was really concerned after the Bolton game as it was the worse first half I have seen from us, and it felt for once I had seen in my own eyes the difference wage budgets mean as Bolton destroyed us.

I find it amazing that there is still a question hanging over Johnnie from fans and whenever we start to struggle for a while, the Johnnie out group come out in force. In fact the last game I attended against Doncaster there was a strong group of fans booing the team and management team off the pitch. Ever since that meeting at PL at the end of his first season in charge I have seen a resilience and determination in Johnnie and he has grown as a manager year on year and coming towards the end of his forth season with us, he continues to grow and find a way of turning things round just in time. Keeping your job for nearly 4 years and wining promotion in the last year really should put these doubts to bed by now.

I have heard some say that he is a lucky manager and lots of his successes are from him throwing as much up against a wall and seeing what sticks. Well, there maybe some truth in that, however I doubt he is on his own doing that and I think his adaptability has become a strength and he isn’t afraid to go back to the drawing board. When you compare it to the interview with Jack Whiltshire at Luton after his choice words with home fans on Saturday who said he wants to implement a style of football that will take time, he might benefit from not being so hell bent on the right way of playing the game as Johnnie realised early on, it’s a result business and if you can entertain doing that great, but if its not the result is the be all and end all.

This season Johnnie started with his 3-5-2 formation built with a strong defensive structure to be hard to beat, press high and counter with pace and directness. That served us well until late October and then a massive drop in form resulted in changing to a flat back 4 without an obvious way of us attacking which was clear in us scoring one goal 2 goals in 7 home games and hardly any shots on target.

To go from that to scoring11 goals in the last 5 games is such a change of fortune that it needs some sort of look at the see what is different.

Team selection and recruitment is a big part of this resurgence. Bringing in James Tilley and Zach Nelson has allowed us to change the formation and attacking focus. Jake Reeves was a topic for discussion throughout our bad run and whilst I am a big fan of Jake, there is no denying that taking him out of the team and going for more legs in the midfield area has been massive for us. Add into that bringing in James Tilley to the starting lineup and finding a place for Junior Nkeng it explains the change in fortune in front of goal.

James Tilley has allowed us to go back to a 3-5-2 set up against a tried and tested tactic of Johnnie changing a winger/forward to an attacking wingback has mean we are now able to play our wingbacks very high and avoid us going from a 3-5-2 in to a 5-3-2 during a game which was happening way too much before. Nkeng can divide opinion and I was not convinced changing the way we play to find a place for a 18 year old who has had hardly any senior football and most recently returned from Chatham Town, was the right thing, however I am a convert and the excitement Nkeng has provided with his old-fashioned wing play and disregard for the opposition full backs has been a massive impact on results. Yes, he can’t defend and the errors a youngster will normally get out of there system with loan moves are happening for us, but during the early part of January we desperately needed someone to move us up the pitch and get the fans believing in the team again. To think the only reason, he made the bench at Exeter in early December was down to a bug in the squad, he has taken this opportunity with both hands and there was a real sense of disappointment that he was only on the bench on Saturday.

I am not in the camp that Bradford were terrible on Saturday and that was the main reason for our win. Yes, Bradford made some terrible accommodation choices and the route to Plough Lane, but they are a strong team in the playoff positions, and they are not going to turn over just because they were late to the ground.

The key to our success on Saturday was playing on the front foot defensively, winning a high percentage of second balls and our wingbacks driving forward at every opportunity. Oh and another outstanding performance from Marcus Browne!!

With Tilley one side and Seddon the other, we forced Neufville and Touray to defend and nullified them as an attacking force. In recent weeks I would say that Johnson and Ogundere have been brilliant and that has provide the strong base for our midfield. Smith has been a revelation dropping into the Reeves role and for a player who could not get any minutes in this team during the early months of the season, Maycock is now a guaranteed starter and a major reason for our improvement in the goal tally.

All in all, the fear I had after the Bolton game that we were heading into the relegation places has changed in 5 games to me looking at the top half of the table and an outside chance of the playoffs.

Of course, this change in fortune is to the credit of everyone and not that much to do with Johnnie, yet previously it was all his fault.

As the old saying goes, success has many fathers, failure is an orphan!