Some defeats feel almost like wins when you consider the vital phenomenon of potential momentum. Yesterday's was a case in point, I and many other Wimbledon fans feared we might get absolutely battered in Wales, this was a country mile away from that.
Not only did we "keep it respectable" as far as the scoeline goes, despite our ravaged ranks (We had a fella on the bench who I'd LITERALLY never heard of) but on another day, we might have won. Considering the circumstances, the first half was as well as I've seen us play under Johnnie Jackson. We were much the better team, Aaron Sasu terrorised the right back and hit the bar, while big James Ball will probably think he might have done better with a header that scraped the woodwork. At the other end, Ryan and Joe practised headers as some bloke lobbed throws into our area.
We were dominant. James Tilley came back and had that sparkle in his eye again, while James Ball plucked the splinters out of his arse and unfurled himself to great effect. He almost scored but equally as notably sat on the toes of George Evans, their influencial schemer in the middle. Josh Davison didn't just lead the line he WAS the line, but if ever you need someone to run around a lot and chase everything, there's nobody better that our recently shorn bustler.
Into the second half and they improved. They could scarcely have gotten worse, we had made them look awful in the first half.
Then came our moment. Josh forced himself through their line and bore down on goal like a Labrador chasing one of those bouncy sponge ball things. The ground held it's breath, Josh steadied himself, the totemic figure of Arthur Onkonkwe (or whatever his name is) spread himself to block out the sun, and Josh pulled it six inches wide. That's what happens sometimes when you go for the corner when running at full speed, sometimes you miss. Course, he could have just blasted it into the midriff of the goalie to satisfy the "You've got to hit the target!" merchants, but he didn't. Watch football at any level though, and strikers miss chances. It happens, it's happened to Ali and this time it happened to Josh. That doesn't change my opinion that our striker was brilliant on the day.
From there, much like when Ethan Chislett broke a floodlight when in on goal against Orient last year, you kind of sensed it wasn't going to be out day. As Wrexham brought on subs who are on more money than our highest earners, we looked at our bench and understandably under these circumstances decided to stick. Eventually we ran out of gas and they scored twice, one of them a lucky ricochet, the other as a result of a good block from a well taken corner.
They knew they'd been in a proper game though. They knew that even without our star man we had more than matched them. We were excellent, the lads and the management team can be proud of their efforts. I certainly was anyway.
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