The lowdown on AFC Wimbledon 1 Bradford City 0 – Dons look like they have extra legs to go the distance in League Two campaign

AFC Wimbledon pushed into the top four of the League Two standings as they saw off promotion rivals Bradford City thanks to a lone goal by James Tilley.

Here is Mitchell Hall’s lowdown on the match.

THE LINE-UPS

AFC Wimbledon: Owen Goodman, Ogundere, Lewis, Johnson, Tilley, Reeves, Smith, Neufville, Kelly (Sasu 84), Bugiel, Stevens (Browne 71).  Subs not used: Ward, Furlong, O’Toole, Hippolyte, Piggott.

Bradford City: Walker, Baldwin, Shepherd, Kelly (Huntington 56), Richards (Wright 30), Smallwood, Sarcevic, Johnson, Pattison, Kavanagh (Mellon 56), Leigh (Lapslie 79).  Subs not used: Doyle, Halliday, Khela.

SNAPSHOT OF THE GAMEIt didn’t take long for the Dons to find the breakthrough, as a fine looping cross fell to James Tilley in acres of space at the back post. It was a simple finish as he nodded home unchallenged in front of the travelling fans.

The free-flowing football that both sides displayed early on quickly fell into a tennis match of long clearances that would inevitably come straight back the other way. This was only made worse in the second-half, as Wimbledon found themselves on the back foot immediately after the break, and couldn’t seem to escape without booting it long.

Both teams had more than a few chances at either end, but there always seemed to be a wall of bodies in the way to stop them adding to the scoreline. Two Wimbledon penalty shouts and a fantastic chance at the back post for Browne were not enough to produce a second goal, and the match somehow remained 1-0 until the final whistle.

TACTICAL APPROACHJackson’s three changes from Tuesday’s draw at Crewe were all in the attacking department, with Kelly, Bugiel and Tilley introduced to fix the issues in front of goal which cost Wimbledon two points in that performance.

These changes were vindicated as Kelly and Stevens proved themselves to be menaces against Bradford’s back three, producing so much space for the widemen to work their magic, and leading to Tilley’s easy finish at the back post in the 13th minute.

Wimbledon remained defensively solid, with Lewis and Johnson comfortably mopping up long balls over the top while Ogundere tracked Bradford’s mobile runners, leading to very few chances for the visitors in their hunt for the equaliser.

STAR MAN

Jake Reeves. The skipper was silky under pressure in the midfield for Wimbledon, deftly plucking balls out of the sky and opening up angles to make raking passes through to the wide players. His wonderful ball in for Tilley’s goal was the cherry on top of a very classy performance. The kind of captain’s display that is crucial in a promotion charge.

BEST MOMENT

Wimbledon were the stronger side in the first half, but that almost came crashing down when Pattison found himself in behind with seemingly nobody near him except a team-mate. The two-on-one breakaway seemed a sure goaL until Isaac Ogundere burst on to the scene. His lung-busting run at full pelt to poke the ball away from the Bradford attacker represented what the young defender is all about, and his subsequent gee-ing up of the home crowd was perfect to defuse the tension that was creeping in at Plough Lane.

MOAN OF THE MATCH

‘Hoofball’. It’s not exactly rare to see a more ‘route-one’ approach taken in the fourth tier of English football, especially when you have someone with the aerial ability of Bugiel leading the line, but the incessant skyward balls from both sides really took the sting out of the game at times. What’s worse is when the teams actually got the ball down and played along the floor, they looked tidy.

A TALKING POINT DOWN THE PUB

That win was good enough to take Wimbledon into the League Two top four, leapfrogging Bradford in the process to go two points off Notts County in the automatic promotion spots, with a game in hand. Now seven league games without a loss, Jackson will be confident that they can keep reeling in the top three in the latter half of the campaign, especially with their diligent winter recruitment giving them the extra legs to go the distance.

WHAT THE BOSS HAD TO SAY

“We managed the game towards the end really well. We know Bradford are going to come out after half-time and take the game to us, we were ready for that. We had a couple of moments, but we weathered that and sort of grew back into the game.”

“The boys who came on did well, we looked like we had an energy about us and by the end were still forcing them backwards. We were more likely to get the goal than they were. We would have liked a second but by the end we looked pretty comfortable and our goal wasn’t troubled too much. It’s a big win because they’re a good opponent who are obviously in and around us, and the league’s so tight that every three points are going to be really crucial.”