By Steve Manning, by kind permission of MK Dons Worldwide on Facebook
Welcome to the Sheffield Wednesday edition of Payne’s Player Ratings, today it falls on my cursed soul to rate the team as they fell to a 5-2 defeat away at Hillsborough Stadium.
I say cursed, as I’m yet to see a victory for any that I’ve covered to date, here then are then my ratings for MK Dons away to Sheffield Weds.
Warning – Long Post!!!!
Jamie Cumming: 8 (Top Don) – when you are tasked with the responsibility of keeping out a rampant attack like Wednesday’s, it is mission impossible. Culpable for a couple of Wednesdays goals, however on the whole could do little about any of the 5 he conceded.
Tennai Watson: 6 – Big T came in for Lawrence and his performance, wasn’t particularly poor. Did allow his marker to get away from him on several occasions, made up for those errors with some crunching tackles though.
Jack Tucker: 4.5 – had a game of contrasts at Hillsborough, not entirely bad, but not entirely good either. Let his marker lose him on several occasions, as feedback goes “must do better”
Zak Jules: 6 – repelled most of the attacks Wednesday had to offer, put his frame in the way of everything he could. However it was always a big ask for him to make up for his fellow defenders shortcomings.
Dan Harvie 5.5 – cannot fault his drive or commitment here, but Harvie looked particularly fragile when under pressure from the owls attack. Better games are coming around the corner, but not soon enough.
Josh McEachran: 5.5. booked – had a very good outing leading the side with authority, some minor slip ups but nothing to be critical of, at fault for the penalty that gifted the leveller. Other than that a solid performance.
Paris Maghoma 5.5 – Midfielder Paris Maghoma was a constant menace against a physically stronger Wednesday outfit. Tired the longer the game went on, losing the ball in some dangerous area’s.
Jonathan Leko: 6.5 – 3 mins ⚽️1-0 his solo run in the opening exchanges saw Leko piledrive an unstoppable effort past Cameron Dawson in the Wednesday goal. I’d advise anyone to watch the EFL highlights for this, but his performance dropped off as the game wore on.
Brad Johnson: 4.5 – huffed and puffed all game, frustratingly his passes regularly missed their mark. Quick to point at his teammates when things were going against them.
Sulley Kaikai 4.5 – started brightly but generally drifted out of the game, disappointing to be fair as this was a game he should have excelled in.
Mo Eisa: 6 – 24 mins⚽️2-1 – energetic as always, chased every loose ball sometimes not quite getting to them. When his goal came, he took it superbly. Marked out of the game the longer it went on.
Subs used:
Dawson Devoy (for McEachran) – 5 – replaced McEachran, but did not have that desired effect on the game. Did put in a couple of hard challenges on a few Owls. Could not impose his game on this encounter.
Henry Lawrence (for 21 Harvie) n/a – not on long enough to have an impact on the proceedings.
Matt Smith (for Maghoma) n/a – not on long enough to have an impact.
Team rating: 5/10 – I found this hard to rate personally, on one hand the first half was enough for me to see some shoots of recovery in this team.
On the other there was the glaring elephant in the room, our inability to defend competently. Giving away silly fouls, such a the penalty awarded minutes into the second half.
One bright point to note is that Dons did take the lead twice at Hillsborough, although Darren Moore’s team did go through them gears as the game unfolded.
Mark Jackson’s task from now until the end of the season must be to get them players’ morale up off the floor, it seems that the confidence is long gone and they are waiting in the departure lounge ready for their journey into league 2.
Thank you for reading this far!
