Yeovil Town v AFC Wimbledon @ Huish Park
Saturday September 12 @ 3pm
AFC Wimbledon will travel to Yeovil on Saturday seeking to maintain the away form that has kept them in touch with the early League Two front-runners.
The Kingsmeadow outfit have yet to taste defeat on the road this term, and Neal Ardley’s troops will be bolstered in the West Country by the return to action of Andy Barcham.
A head injury forced the former Gillingham winger to sit out last week’s draw at Mansfield, a game that the Dons finished with ten men following the stoppage time dismissal of Lyle Taylor.
The club’s subsequent appeal against Taylor’s red card proved unsuccessful, ruling the striker out of his team’s next three matches.
It was a decision that left Ardley frustrated, even more so given that Mansfield backed the Dons’ bid to overturn Taylor’s suspension.
Nevertheless, Ardley, who can call on Karleigh Osborne at Yeovil after the defender returned to training following a knock sustained at Mansfield, was in positive mood when talking ahead of this weekend’s encounter.
The manager explained to Dons Player that he was particularly grateful for the opportunity to undertake some fine-tuning during a full week on the training ground, in preparation to take on Paul Sturrock’s struggling Glovers.
“We feel that we have got good players, but we have to make sure that as a team our performance levels are high,” he said.
“That is what it is all about when you get these weeks of freedom to do some coaching.”
Sturrock, meanwhile, has confessed that an injury crisis at Huish Park means he will be hard pushed to fill a substitutes bench.
The Scot already seems set to be embroiled in a battle to prevent his side, who sit 23rd, from suffering the ignominy of a third successive relegation.
Ardley, however, is taking nothing for granted
He siad: “They have a good size about them and are athletic.
“They will see this as one that they can win at home and pick-up their form.”
Feature image courtesy of AFC Wimbledon TV, via Youtube, with thanks
