In the swirling wind and freezing rain of North Yorkshire, AFC Wimbledon turned in surely as dominant an away display as you'll ever see. Such was our superiority that if come the end of the season we fail by goal difference, we'll look back and wonder how we didn't win this by six not three.
Football has always been a "funny old game", no more so than here. Harrogate decided to play hoofball in the desperate conditions, which I've got to say didn't look like the worst ploy to me on the face of it. We on the other hand decided to try and get it down and play through the thirds, much more so than we have in far more convivial conditions than these recently. In the early skirmishes there were moments where which approach would win out was in the balance, but not for long.
Fortunately for us in Ali Smith we had the one player on the pitch who was able to exert some control over things in midfield, and gradually we took over. The excellent Josh Kelly opened the scoring with a slightly deflected but nonetheless solid hit, Jonjo O Toole doubled it with a set piece header. The last one will no doubt please the coaching staff no end, we've needed more of those.
By now Harrogate had realised that their "launch & see" tactics were not going to trouble Ryan Johnson, Isaac Ogundere and Jonjo O Toole (who in particular was superb) at all, and in truth the game was done as a contest by half time.
In the second half with the wind howling at our tail, we kept our foot on their throat and in truth it could have been any score you like. Matty Stevens added a third with the cutest little dink finish after a beautiful little "knife through butter" pass from Josh Kelly. The latter is visibly growing before our eyes, he is a fine footballer who at last looks like he's about to realise his obvious potential.
Matty Stevens is starting to worry me a little. I didn't think I'd ever better my "I don't fancy the goalkeeper" comment after a 4-1 home defeat by Barnsley (it was Aaron Ramsdale), but I'm getting closer by the week with this lad. My "Copey has got this one wrong" comment when I heard we'd signed Matty is looking more and more ridiculous with every passing minute. He was fantastic here and turned in as good a centre forwards display as I've seen in our games all season.
There was still time for us to be denied a fourth goal when Matty (again) headed in from a corner. Whatever it was that the referee thought was wrong with it is an utter mystery to me. I was stood ten yards away and I couldn't see anything, but there you go. Similarly, Josh Kelly was bundled over in the box and our penalty shout which a billion per cent more credible than the one young Huss Biler was pinged for on Tuesday was waved away. We aren't getting the run from officials at the moment, hopefully soon it starts to even itself out.
It's not often a team beaten 3-0 is left feeling that they dodged a bullet, but those Harrogate players will surely have thought that at 5pm yesterday. This could literally have been seven or eight nil, we were absolutely magnificent to a man.
Any gripes? Just the one and it's an entirely predictable moan on my part. This game was done way before the end. Why we pulled young Morgan Williams out of playing 90 minutes for Dorking to sit on his arse here will forever remain a mystery to me. I'm as proud a Yorkshireman as they come and Harrogate is very beautiful, but I can't help thinking that the young midfielder could probably have survived without a weekend sight seeing tour around the place. Ten minutes at the end, a "run out" we used to call it, surely made sense. I get that he'll play Tuesday, but I think he should have played some minutes here too. Maybe he was carrying a slight knock or something, I honestly couldn't work that one out.
Anyway it's a minor gripe (to me anyway, no doubt the kid is a bit miffed himself) because we were SO good here. On this sort of form, we possess too much power and physicality for most of this division, superb stuff. COYD
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