Match report AFC Wimbledon v Ipswich Town

It's probably a measure of how far AFC Wimbledon have come, when the talk in the bar afterwards was all "What might have been".

I shouldn't think even the doughtiest of Wimbledon fans would deny that their table topping opponents from two divisions up were the better team with better players, but equally Ipswich by the end will know they were in a proper game. We hung on in there despite huge setbacks and deserve huge credit. The manager spoke afterwards of his pride in the teams performance, I felt that too.

It hadn't begun well. We conceded as bad a goal as you'll see from a scruffy corner, got ourselves back into it with a stonewall Jake Reeves penalty, then gave an even worse goal away than the first one. For a team who are normally good at defending corners to give away so cheaply twice in one game will drive our dressing room mad. This is particularly the case as we were matching Ipswich every step of the way in between the two boxes.

The second half began as level as the first, until the Harry Pell incident. I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with Johnny and most of our fans here, I thought it was a nailed on second yellow card (as his first was a nailed on first yellow). It was right in front of me, I instantly thought he was in trouble.

From there I thought we might get battered, but I was totally wrong. We regrouped, Johnnie and the management team tweaked it, and we comfortably stayed in the game. Ipswich had their moments, but so did we as Armani Little forced a fine save from their keeper.

We rode our luck a bit but it remained 1-2. The plan was surely to stay in it till the end, then chuck the big lads on for the last few minutes. But then just as we were about to do just that, as big James Ball unfurled himself on the touchline, we conceded the third and the game was up.

There is no shame at all in this defeat though. Ipswich are an excellent team and demonstrated it here. They have top players who came out to play. We though, despite not having three of our best players gave them a right good go. Jack Currie was magnificent, at least as good as any of his opponents and we exit the cup with our heads held high.

Yes we need a couple of signings, but we have a good team, a good manager and a good recruiter. We're in safe hands and I'm not concerned. COYD and well played lads 👏.