Why I'm glad that Ali Al-Hamadi is joining Ipswich Town.

League Two is brilliant, the EFL is brilliant. One of the best things about football in the EFL is seeing lads who you know are too good for the level, catching a glimpse of them before they move on up the ladder. It's good fun even when it's another teams players. The talents of the likes of Junior Tchamadeu at Colchester and Kamil Conteh at Grimsby shone like the neon light on the front of the Dog and Fox. It's fun watching as the scouts at bigger clubs eventually wake up to the fact that there's gold running through the lower league streams.

When it's your own players, it's even better. When I first started watching Wimbledon I marvelled at how good Jack Rudoni was. Just a skinny, mop-topped kid playing left midfield in a poor team. He was top goalscorer that year, head and shoulders our best player and so obviously on his way up you'd have to be blind not to see it. I couldn't believe (still can't) that only Huddersfield were prepared to pay the 865K fee. Ayoub Assal was another, to this day my favourite Wimbledon player. A joy to watch, a player that had that priceless ability to get you off your seat, on his way up.

Our latest is Ali. I remember going to a youth cup game just after he'd arrived. He didn't play obviously, but sat in a seat in the stands in front of me. I didn't bother him any (couldn't properly remember his name at that point) but couldn't help but notice how he looked like he was honed from granite, not the sort of lad you'd want a fight in a kebab shop with. When my daughter told me his age, I had to Google it to make sure. I've a son the same age, my lad could have five of his mates with him in that mythical kebab shop, Ali would smash all of em. He'd nick their chicken doners and air force ones with equal ease.

Then when he started to play, sheesh. Raw doesn't even go close to describing how much he has to learn, but the talent? wow. Pace, power, skill and the heart of a lion. He plays football like he's been told that tomorrow he's having a leg amputated. He sweats blood for the team, fights for every inch of grass. Ali is an absolute warrior of a footballer, one to see next to you in the trenches and be happy he's on your side.

And why am I happy he's going to Ipswich? Now? Because it's the right move for him, and longer term it'll be the right move for the club as well. I'm hearing from non HP sources that the deal might be split, this much now then this much if Ipswich go up. Plus a sell on clause. Why do I like this deal so much? It's the club he's going to really. Ipswich are a fine team (forget the result yesterday, they had 38:2 shots and lost 2-1!) and they play a style which will suit Ali down to the ground. They press high, and nobody hunts the ball like the Iraqi prince. And if he gets in the team (he will) they'll play him in on goal, Ali will score heavily.

The crucial thing for us (and partially I must confess for Ali as well, I love him) is that he PLAYS. My guess is that he will get into their team. Whether they go up or not, by next Summer (2025) they won't be able to hold onto him, irrespective of whether or not they are in the Premier League. Our man (for he will ALWAYS be our man) will go for big money, and our cut of that will mean we end up getting the " well North of 5 million quid" that he is worth.

No, this is a good deal. Does it damage us short term? Obviously, but I think with new lads Ronan & John (sound like a dodgy 70's pop duo) we can STILL get in the playoffs. We can definitely still be in with a shout right until the death, and at least come the end of the season we can keep our team together, go again next season.

That's the nub of it really. Ali is gonna be away in any case, whether we get promoted or not. Rightly so, the lad is destined for a different kind of football. He'll go with my blessing, he 100% deserves it. And when he does, I'll be crossing my fingers that he smashes it in East Anglia. He will, of course he will.

My match report: AFC Wimbledon v Mansfield Town.

Die Hard is a Christmas movie, don't let anyone ever tell you it isn't. Some people don't like it, I reckon it says a lot about someone if they don't like Die Hard, not in a good way either. I suppose one of the reasons folks might not be into it is they think it's too far fetched. How can ten blokes train their sub-machine guns on John McClane and not a single bullet hit him? Nobody dodged THAT MANY bullets they say, what a load of nonsense they talk.

They should have been at Plough Lane today. We dodged more bullets that Bruce Willis did in the whole series, and like the vest wearing New York cop, we don't care either.

Did we play great? Nah, and were we in all honesty slightly outplayed at times by Mansfield's ten men? Yep. Did we have the advantage of the totemic Aden Flint going off after twenty minutes and one of the leagues best players in Davis Keilor-Dunne being on the bench? Yep, but thems the breaks. Then, before we got the winner did we survive what looked to me an absolute stonewall penalty claim against us? Yes again, but we've had our share of ridiculous decisions.

So there it is. Omar scored a cracker, we let a soft (but well finished) equaliser in, we dodged a shower of bullets with the penalty claim, then won it at the death with a goal on his debut from Ronan Curtis.

Someone off the Mansfield bench jumped in the crowd for a ruck, the Mansfield fans sang "You're not fit to referee" (it was hard to argue) and Nigel Clough shook his head in disbelief.

We couldn't believe it either, but we got the three points. That's all that matters really, and if we'd drawn 0-0 at Wrexham, MK & here we'd have the same number of points we have from losing two and winning this one.

That's football. I felt (a little bit) for Mansfield, but thems the breaks. Yippy Kye Aye and all that stuff.

Prostate cancer and me. Get checked!

Through the brilliant work of charities like the Bob Willis foundation, I guess most of us blokes have by now at least heard of the prostate. We know the flippin thing can kill us if we get cancer in it, and we know it's common. Beyond that, in typical male fashion we know the best part of bugger all about it. We treat it a bit like the annoying bloke next door, ignoring it, not engaging with nor showing any interest in it, hoping we never cross paths.

Fortunately for most, this approach works (and please feel free to stick with it as far as Colin from next door goes, some people simply can't be fixed). Unfortunately though for some of us, ignoring our prostate doesn't work and from there you have a bit of an issue.

My prostate story began around Summer last year. I noticed that I'd had to start getting up during the night to go for a pee a bit too often, and it wasn't even only when I'd drank loads of pints. I'd read somewhere that this could be a prostate alarm bell, so I decided to get tested (good move this as it happens, probably saved my life).

The doc explained that the old finger up the bum was a bit old school (not the school I went to but you get my drift) and these days it was all about blood tests. That suited me fine, so they took some blood and tested my PSA (prostate specific antigen) level. Apparently your prostate emits these thingies a bit like a buoy bobbing around in the ocean sending out bleeps. Not an exact science by all accounts, but they can work out roughly what it should be according to your body size and from there make a determination.

At this point I'm going to digress a little and talk about the prostate itself (I knew bugger all about it previously). Inside your tummy you have a bladder, that's where the fluid is stored before you have a pee. That bladder is connected to your todger by a thin tube which sounds like a region in Russia. Where that tube connects to your bladder, the prostate is like a washer which fits around the tube, like a little doughnut (think Jacob Rees-Mogg). It's about as big as a walnut (ditto). It's primary function (it seems to me) is to make the milky stuff that goes into sperm. If you're a doctor and I'm wrong here, now you know how Johnnie Jackson feels reading my blogs about football every week. Anyway, if you get cancer in the prostate it can cause it to swell and nip your pee tube. This means that it becomes difficult to fully empty your bladder etc, and you need to go to the loo more often.

Anyway, back to my PSA test last Summer. I scored 645 and apparently it should have been 512. They sent me away for a few weeks, told me to cut down on booze, sex and spicy foods (some were easier than others) and come back in a few weeks. Next time up I scored 828, Houston we had a problem.

From there in hospital terms I was a bit like Terry who drinks in the Alex, being that I was in there more than the fella supposed to be running the gaff. I had my "flow " tested ("like a racehorse"), had one of those things where you go inside the big X-ray tube (MRI is it?) and a biopsy. The last one they go in and chop bits of your prostate out for analysis. What was all of that like? Probably not as bad as you're imagining, but pretty flippin close to be honest.

Anyway after the MRI tube thing I had "a 58% chance" of it being cancer. After the biopsy it became 100% and it was in two places in my prostate, confirmed, cast iron. They give you a thing called a Gleason index which measures how aggressive it is. Mine was 3:3 which apparently is the equivalent in terms of aggression to around a Jake Reeves. He can get riled up, but by and large he keeps it sensible. You don't want a Vinnie Jones or an Armani Little on the old Gleeson score obviously. Most important of all though is that I was stage two, pretty early. It starts at one and goes to five. Once you get into the fours it gets decidedly dicey, at five you need a few snookers. 

My options? They were firstly do bugger all. Monitor it every few months and be ready to act if Jake gets out of the wrong side of the bed one day or if someone kicks him. That didn't overly appeal to me, having it hanging over me like. Secondly it was chemotherapy. I've seen my Mum go through that, you don't need me to explain it you. I didn't fancy that overly either. The third option was to have the prostate removed, I went with that.

If you have your prostate removed, you won't be able to father any more children. I'm 57, I reckoned I could put up with that OK. Apparently it will effect sexual function too. Doesn't completely kill you off, but you'll no longer ejaculate and even getting a boner takes a bit of practice. None of the above are ideal, but under the circumstances I felt I could live with the last one the best. If I was 27 not 57 it might have been different, but I'm not so it's not.

So anyway last Thursday I had the prostate out. Three and a half hour operation, two days in hospital. I had a catheter in for a week (tube coming out of your todger and connected to your bladder, pee bag strapped to your leg). However bad you imagine this is, double it and add three. When I got home I was as sore as fuck, and I thought the recovery would be long.

This morning though (8 days after the op) I had my catheter out. I'm still a bit tender in my guts, but I can walk around no problem and if you met me you wouldn't have a clue there was owt wrong with me. I'm thinking about going to the football tomorrow, I've just had a box of KFC for lunch and I'm feeling strong. I wouldn't try and lob any drunks out of the Alex or have a tear up with an MK fan, but I'm definitely improving fast (I wouldn't have a tear up with a rival fan anyway but you get my point).

I've got some scars, I'm a bit sore. I can't have anymore kids & any dreams of being a porn star (as if!) are in the bin, but at least whatever happens I won't die of prostate cancer.

I feel lucky, so so lucky. Thankyou to all of the folks at the hospital who helped me out, you were brilliant, thankyou so so much. You can be lucky too, go get yourself checked out. That's what I've done ever since my diagnosis, urged people to get checked out. If one person reads this and thinks, "Y'know what?" then I've had a good day. 👊❤️

Time for a bit of a reset? How to set about Mansfield.

After we'd spent the whole of December telling each other that January was "going to be brutal", the fact that we've been proven right so far oughtn't to alarm anyone. There were though some worrying aspects creeping in against MK, and like most fans I should think found it a much tougher watch than the defeat at Wrexham.

I described the first half at Wrexham as just about the best I'd seen us play under Johnnie Jackson. High praise indeed, but given the circumstances I thought we were superb. Yes we were eventually ran out of it, but given the available players we could take much from the defeat.

So why was MK so different? Particularly as we still had no Ali, no Omar etc? Well the glaringly obvious difference was that our trip to Wales saw us play with a clear mindset, an obvious method which all of the players bought into. It was fairly obvious for example that we'd have taken a 0-0 draw there if it was offered. We sought to contain, frustrate, pick our moments to press and then see if we could nick something. Had Josh buried his chance it may have worked, but in any case against a very good team we applied ourselves with credit, only going down narrowly.

Unfortunately against MK for whatever reason we got distinctly muddled. It was far less obvious to these eyes anyway what our actual plan was, the players too were left looking confused at times. We seemed unsure whether to press effectively in numbers or to just drop off and contain. Standing mid court in tennis never works, and in pretty much all sport you need to commit within the contest to either defending, containing or attacking at a given moment. Confused dot com is no way to play football, and us leaving the back five in situ but pressing their ten players with our other six (they left one up top) was always doomed to fail. Johnnie Jackson is in my view a much improved manager this season, if he's as good as I think he is he'll already have worked out that we got this one totally wrong.

Fortunately for us there are only three teams in our league which play the extreme possession style favoured by MK & Notts County. Unfortunately our next opponents (Mansfield) are the other, and they are certainly the best team of the three. In Aden Flint they have probably the best centre half in the league, and in Davis Keilor-Dunne one of its best players. If we play in such a befuddled fashion as we did against MK, we will be beaten more heavily than the 3-1 inflicted upon us last night.

So it is time in my view for a reset. We need a root and branch look at it from the players and the management, how are we going to play? Either we're going to let them have the ball in their half, or we aren't. If it's the former we drop off, if it's the latter we press properly, with bravery and in numbers.

Now it's always safer to drop off in the sense you are harder to play around, but you do become very passive. Equally, as Ali isn't around it's not easy for us to build and create chances, we are better in transition. So if it was me, I'd be up for getting MUCH bolder with the press. My guess is that we are going to have to score AT LEAST once in order to get anything from the game, so we may as well get onto the front foot.

That means nudging the full backs on into midfield at opportune moments, going man for man when their goalie has it, commiting Reeves and Little into the press as well etc. It's a risky strategy, but at least it's a clear one which everyone can understand. We'll avoid those "everyone looking at each other not knowing whether to stick or twist" moments we had last night, and we'll be far more dangerous.

A quick word to the fans too. These are a REALLY good team. If we do get beat, it's not the end of the World as we know it to quote Michael Stype. What it is, is the end of a really tricky January, and if we win this game then three points out of nine will be not too bad at all.

COYD

My Match Report: Milton Keynes v AFC Wimbledon.

Sometimes you get out of bed and on the way to the carsey you tread on an earring your daughter has left on the bathroom floor. You howl in agony and as you try to hop and grab the punctured foot at the same time, you trip over the cat and fall in the bath. Inevitably you grab at a shelf on the way down. Equally predictably it's not designed to hold you up and you rip it off the wall, sending it's contents spiralling to the tiles. Everything that could go wrong does go wrong, sometimes in life it happens.

Course, you could stomp up the stairs and have a go at the daughter for not being more careful, you could if you can catch it kick the cat, you could use thicker wall plugs when putting shelves up. The reality is though that none of these things will help, sometimes you just gotta accept that it wasn't your day.

So you know where I'm going with this. As a football club, be it the fanbase, the management team or the players, knowing what to do when you have one of "those" days is vital. I'll tell you what you do, nothing. You don't panic. You don't conclude that the players "don't care", that they "don't get it" or that the manager is a mug. You analyse, you study, you improve, and next time you come up against the same opponent you do better.

So emotion aside for a second, here are my thoughts. The players DO care (of course they do FFS), so do the management team. I would argue that in this particular fixture they care way too much. We allow ourselves as a club to let our obvious desire to win the game cloud our judgement as to how to best achieve that outcome. We do it every time, hopefully this is the last one. MK are a decent team with some good players, but anywhere near our best we would see them off in my opinion more often than not. In order to do that though we have to calm down, be way more clinical.

The way MK play these days under Mike Williamson makes even the Liam Manning version look like a route one team. Next time, we are going to have to press the football much more effectively. We need to be braver, you can't press in ones and twos. We were nowhere near so effective here as we were against Notts County, in their desire to get stuck in our players were either freezing or being too reckless and going alone.

I can't think of a better example of us wanting it too much than James Tilleys miss on the stroke of half time. He scores that and it's a different game, he thinks that only he knows how he missed it. He's wrong, I know how he missed it too. He tried too hard to make sure, rather than just larraping it into the net like he normally would.

We've got to defend much better. Hus Biler was as bad as I've ever seen him and was a shoo in red card. I'm not giving up on the kid after one poor game, no way. Jack Currie has been much better than he was tonight, and while PK can count himself a tad unlucky he did get wrong side for his red card. Ryan Johnson was as hesitant as he was unlucky for the second goal, only the goalkeeper and Joe Lewis were anywhere near it on the day.

Up top Aaron Sasu continues to shimmer like a speck of gold in the middle of a babbling brook, while new signing John Kymani-Gordon had a fine debut. The rest of the lads will know that they have played better. No doubt the management team have coached and set up better too, but NONE of them failed for lack of effort. It's not time for recriminations, it's time for support. We lick our wounds, we take it on the chin, and we make sure that the next time we do much better.

I think we will. COYD.

My Match Report: Wrexham v AFC Wimbledon

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.

Joe Lewis-A MASSIVE signing for the Dons.

Often when a player first joins a club, particularly if it's one the fans aren't previously aware of, it's interesting to track opinion as time goes on. When Joe Lewis first arrived on loan from Stockport, all anyone talked about was the shorts. "He's a decent player this new fella, but what's the effing score with the shorts?" was the talk of the early away trips. These was a probably a wee bit of resentment and jealousy from the lads too, all the girls loved him.

Gradually though, people began to see past the shorts (well most did anyway 😂) and we began to collectively realise that what we had here was a proper footballer. This is a fella who wins headers, has pace across the ground and is as strong as a bull. He actually doesn't need that "look at how big my muscles are" stance that he has in my photo 😂, he is all core strength. Great technique too, gets his legs set and then just wrestles whoever it is he is up against our of the way.

I'm told that off the pitch Joe isn't as big as he looks on it, when he helped out at DLAG they loved him but commented on how "normal" he looks, quietly spoken too. The fact he isn't quite so imposing in "real life" is unsurprising really, he represents an absolutely mountainous presence on the grass. I once met John Terry and felt exactly the same as those who met Joe, the player and the man is much bigger in stature and presence than in actual height.

There's more though isn't there? It isn't just that Joe Lewis is a very good football player, everyone knows that. It isn't just that he's one of the best centre halves in League Two, that's pretty obvious also. It isn't even that because of his pace, because of his sprinkling of star quality that he could play a level or two higher, no there's more to it than that. 

It's Joe Lewis, the man. Like a Jack Reacher on the football pitch, Joe is the fella that embodies what every bloke watching would like to be. He has the looks, the talent but not just that, he has the heart of a lion that every team needs at its core. Jack Reacher irons people out and gets all the girls, no doubt so does Joe Lewis.

I think he's a brilliant footballer, and crucially he GETS us. I totally understand why the wonderful John Green dug down the back of the sofa to find some spare sheckles to stick in the pot (Top man John BTW ❤️), he did it because Joe Lewis embodies what AFC Wimbledon is all about. The fans absolutely love this lad, he gives 100% in every minute of every game.

Joe Lewis is a certain future captain if he stays long enough, his signing has absolutely made my January. Welcome permanently Joe, and well done to Johnnie, Skivvers, Rob, Craig & Bayzo for convincing you that this was the place. 

Now I can stop pretending to Stockport fans that Joe is rubbish. The truth is, he is flippin brilliant 👏👏.