AFC Wimbledon boss Neal Ardley reckons he was too harsh on his players in the light of Tuesday’s gung-ho win at Accrington Stanley.
However, it took the praise from the League Two opposition manager to make Ardley see things differently.
The Dons came back from 2-0 and 3-2 down to win 4-3 and take a first ever Football League point off the Lancashire side on their turf.
It also went some way to put to bed the memory of Saturday’s 5-2 defeat to Morecambe.
Ardley said: “After the Accrington game, we, the staff, were a bit flat – even though we’d come away with a great comeback having shown great character.
“But we know we cannot play like that every week, and we had to think about what we needed to work on.
“We had to question why we’d gone like this [conceding eight goals] in the past two games because we had been defensively very solid.”
He added: “But we chatted to their staff after the game and they said we deserved the win, from 10 minutes on we’d battered them.
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“I was sitting there thinking ‘Am I too harsh on my own team?’ Accrington had made substitutions at half time because they felt they could not get a grip on the game and felt we were dominating them.
“They said the hunger in our players was far better than theirs. Maybe when you’re in charge of a team maybe you are too negative.”
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Ardley was quick to hand all the credit for the Accrington fightback to the players, although after 10 minutes with his side 2-0 down, his thoughts were quite different.
He added: “Ten minutes into the game, I am sat on the bench thinking ‘Oh my God’ - it was staggering to see how we started.
“I have to give all the credit to the players for the way they came back. I should take the credit because I get hammered when we lose, but I am not going to.
“The players did it all from minute 11 onwards. They were 2-0 down and could have folded. They raised their game and from then on, they won 4-1.
“They did that, they were ruthless in how they attacked.
“Words were said at half time and in the second half they were comfortable, they never looked like conceding.”
The Dons go to York City on Saturday – click here for a preview.
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