The last minutes of this one has changed the perspective and content of this report massively.
It could be claimed by one young Dons fan the credit for this win is his, but more of that later…much much later.
The Dons made one change with Williams dropping out through injury being replaced by Dawson Devoy for his first start of the season, becoming only our eleventh different player to start a league game.
It started well with the Dons taking the game by the scruff of the neck, as Mo Eisa scored his second header of the season to make it four in four for him. Lovely header across the face of goal from Cameron Norman’s cross.
Yeah… it went south after that pretty quickly.
First down our right, nippy winger loses Norman easily and crosses the whole defence froze, MacGillivray stranded on his line, and the covering defender failed to win the ball and from a yard out it was level.
We’ve talked before how important it is to regroup and stabilise after twice in pre-season, letting in goals in quick succession. Well, we didn’t learn from that, or the goal conceded in the game because inside two minutes, we were two one down to a duplicate goal, but from the left side of our defence.
Then, for the next hour or more, the Dons reverted to the Crawley game, struggling to get a grip and hoofing long.
On sixty-three minutes, and here comes Isaac’s moment of glory….HE told Graham Alexander to play Matt Dennis!! On he came.
With time ticking away, the most regularly used sub, Alex Hunter put Gilbey through, and he did what a Gilbey does every now and then, lofted ball over the keeper and into the top bin. That was on eighty-eight minutes.
You could literally see conceding a late equaliser deflate the home side, and when the board went up with eleven minutes to play, it was The Dons who were looking to finish strongly with Colchester looking punch drunk and avoid being knocked out now.
Well, Isaac, you weren’t wrong, son.
110th minute Hunter, again with the assist, gave it to “Chunky” and he stroked the ball home, and the away end went bonkers.
What a turn around and, like I say, a very different match report as a result.
This is not a new dawn. Yes, it shows resilience and character. But we are papering over the cracks. We’ve flattered to deceive and stolen three points today. It’s not a problem to win while not performing, but you won’t get lucky every time.
We need a minimum of four players. We probably won’t get them, and that’s going to be the watershed. If we don’t back Alexander in this window, it will be another major mistake by the club that just can’t help themselves of late.
