By Luke Payne, Feature Writer
The curse of the Tuesday night away game returns! Mike Williamson’s men were faced with a trip to relegation battlers Grimsby, who have David Artell at the wheel. Unfortunately, the Dons fell flat on the night and lost 1-0, barely testing the opposition keeper at all. In a surprising turn of events, Joe Tomlinson was absent from the match-day squad, and this certainly put a dampener on things from the off. Here’s how I rated the players after the defeat at Blundell Park:
Formation: 5-4-1/5-2-2-1 (Two holding midfielders and two attacking midfielders)
GK – Michael Kelly – 6: He was let down by his defence for the goal but nearly made things worse by conceding a penalty after taking a poor touch from a back-pass and wiping out the Grimsby player that tackled him. However, he made up for his mistake by saving the penalty, standing tall to deny Gavan Holohan, who aimed his shot straight down the middle. Aside from this, Kelly made one or two basic saves but was mostly a bystander with Grimsby looking to put men behind the ball to protect their lead.
RWB – Kyran Lofthouse – 6: Struggled to create much and didn’t play with the same confidence he did against Salford. He tried to get a couple of balls into the box, but they were comfortably blocked. Most of the time, he would just pass the ball backwards and let his teammates recycle possession. Lofthouse did make one very impressive interception high up the field that won Dons a corner, but he had little impact beyond that. Defensively, he used his body well, though was caught out of position a few times. Lofthouse was halfway up the pitch for the goal, but he was with his marker, so it would be harsh to blame him.
RCB – MJ Williams – 5: Fumbled about a lot and barely did enough defensively whenever Grimsby came forward with numbers. With this being said he did enough to prevent a shot on goal more often than not. Williams was stuck between a rock and a hard place for the goal, with his marker holding his run whilst the Welshman tried to get in a position to block a potential shot coming in from the man with the ball. He was also involved in the penalty, playing the ball back to Kelly but it was a safe pass that the keeper shouldn’t have struggled to control. Williams’ passing was inconsistent, often playing dodgy short passes but effortlessly looping long balls to the other side of defence with no problem. He also kept trying to force a long ball over the top but he wasn’t accurate enough to get the pass right.
CB – Warren O’Hora – 5.5: The most reliable of the three centre-backs but even he had some mistakes in his game, most notably clearing a ball directly to a Grimsby player in the box but fortunately the resulting shot hit the post before rebounding straight back to O’Hora who played a safe pass away at the second time of asking. With this being said, he put in plenty of tackles and blocks that prevented Grimsby from causing even more problems. O’Hora saw a lot of the ball in this game and though he’s instructed to encourage teams to press before moving the ball on, he should’ve realised that Grimsby had no real interest in pressing once they were ahead. This means he could’ve been more aggressive on the ball and much faster with his passing which would’ve opened pockets of space in their low block and made them easier to break down. O’Hora was another player that booted the ball aimlessly in frustration a few times, even doing so with just one minute left after the team had spent the last couple of minutes playing the ball about.
LCB – Daniel Harvie – 4: A really bad day at the office for the Scotsman. Harvie struggled with his passing and frequently gave the ball away cheaply, including in the build-up to the goal. He got caught out far too often in dangerous positions and didn’t always keep tabs on his marker, even allowing them a free shot at the back post on one occasion. Harvie did occasionally did make good runs into the opposition half and he was involved in The Dons’ best chance of the game but just like O’Hora, he was usually content to play the ball about slowly around the back. There’s a difference between stretching the tempo and simply playing at a slow tempo and this was blatantly the latter for most of the game. Harvie had one chance to shoot from a corner but he got his footing wrong and the ball bounced off his foot and was easily cleared by Grimsby.
LWB – Stephen Wearne – 4.5: Just as Williams isn’t a centre-back, Wearne is definitely not a wingback. In the first half he put a couple of crosses into the box from wide positions that asked questions of Grimsby’s defence but after that he seemed hell-bent on getting into more central positions when Grimsby were already congesting the box with their players in an attempt to hold onto their lead. This left Dons with no space to find in the box and no outlet on the left to recycle the ball to. It also didn’t help that he struggled to control the ball properly and never really looked comfortable in possession.
CM – Jack Payne – 5.5: Controlled a lot of the play alongside Lewis Bate but gave the ball away with poor passes far too often, perhaps struggling to find a teammate in space due to Grimsby’s compact shape. Payne was comfortable enough getting through the middle third but hit a brick wall once he reached the edge of the box with no-one to pass to aside from Bate beside him and Lofthouse on his right. There was no opportunity to play an incisive ball so more often than not the ball would go backwards or sideways and then backwards instead.
CM – Lewis Bate – 6.5 (TOP DON): The only Dons player to have played at an acceptable standard and even he was making silly mistakes towards the end. Bate would regularly pick up the ball in deep positions. However, where his teammates looked to slow the game down, Bate would dart into action either by playing a first time pass or by turning on the ball and sprinting away from his marker before moving the ball on. He got Dons into a better position near enough every time he carried the ball and this confidence in possession is what the rest of the team were lacking…well that and the urgency to move the ball quickly. At one point he even defused a dangerous counter-attack, collecting the ball deep in The Dons half before escaping two Grimsby players and playing a pass directly between them to send Dons back up the pitch.
RAM – Dan Kemp – 5.5: Started the game slowly and was incredibly poor defensively for the goal. Kemp watched the cross come into the box but rather than deciding to chase it and make sure that no opposition player could reach it, he let his marker Abo Eisa run straight past him. Eisa was first to the ball and played it back across goal to Justin Obikwu who had an easy finish with the defence flailing in an attempt to make up for Kemp’s mistake. This made it 1-0 after 33 minutes. He was also inconsistent on the ball which was summed up when he tried to play a ball across the box but booted it straight over everyone and out for a throw-in. With this being said, Kemp did play a few dangerous balls into the box that weren’t capitalised on and he looked to be stepping his game up just before he was taken off. He had one shot on target after Alex Gilbey played a low ball across the box. From there, Kemp took one touch to set himself and aimed for the far bottom corner but his effort was cleared off the line. He came off after 59 minutes for Emre Tezgel.
LAM – Alex Gilbey (C) – 5.5: Struggled to get as involved as he did in the previous two games, though he did look a bit tired and probably could’ve done with a rest. He played a lovely ball across the box for Kemp and he did test the Grimsby defence a few times but he couldn’t get into any shooting positions. Gilbey was one of the more reliable passers on the ball but lacked movement around him in the final third, with Wearne often joining him in a central position and no-one supporting him on the left. He won a few corners for his efforts but had little impact beyond that.
ST – Ellis Harrison – 5: Had a difficult game playing with two men in close proximity to him most of the time. He struggled with his first touch at times, though he had very little service on the ground anyway. Harrison had a couple of headed efforts on goal. The first came from a Wearne cross but it came in slightly high so Harrison couldn’t direct it towards goal. The second came from a corner where he once again headed wide. He often found himself dropping into the left wingback position just to get some time on the ball and he did test the defence with a couple of teasing low crosses. He came off after 59 minutes for Matt Dennis.
SUB (RAM) – Emre Tezgel – 6: Involved in some good link-up play as usual but had the same problem as the rest of the attacking players. There was very little space to operate in when Dons reached the final third and the ball was being played far too slowly to catch any opposition players out of position. One of the more consistent players but was working with scraps.
SUB (ST) – Matt Dennis – 4.5: Perhaps harsh due to the limited service he was getting but this felt more like the Dennis that couldn’t be bothered and wasn’t going to run. He got into one decent position but his touch let him down and by the time he recovered the chance was gone. Dennis tried to stay close to the last line of defence but this just left him isolated.
TEAM PERFORMANCE – 5: The Dons had a lot of control over the game but failed to make any of it count. The tempo was far too slow which made Dons far too predictable, making it easy for a well-organised side like Grimsby to defend. They were compact and narrow with their defensive approach which means there should’ve been space to work with on the wings but everyone seemed to want to crowd around the ball instead of stretching the pitch and forcing the Grimsby players out of their shape. There were too many players that were giving the ball away cheaply at regular intervals and eventually Grimsby capitalised, countering quickly and catching Dan Kemp napping. From there they had something to defend which only made it harder to break them down and with no increase in tempo ever taking place, the game was gone.
Tactically Mike Williamson was outplayed by David Artell. Some of you might be aware that I’m a big fan of Artell and the way he gets his teams playing, to the point that I wanted him as the manager before we announced Williamson. This wasn’t how an Artell side usually sets up but there was a clear game plan that was executed well and each player clearly understood their role. This wasn’t the case with Williamson’s Dons in this game. Joe Tomlinson is integral to the way the team plays and there’s enough of an understanding with him on the pitch that Dons can rotate positions and move the ball swiftly down the left. Without him there, Dons looked disjointed. Stephen Wearne spent far too much time trying to get into central positions and with no-one stepping out to rotate the same way they would for Tomlinson, everything just crumbled in the final third. Either Wearne had to stay wide or someone like Alex Gilbey or Dan Kemp had to drift out to stretch the pitch and give Dons another attacking avenue.
The other mistake Dons made with attacking is simply not shooting. What The Dons have done well in other recent games is going for goal from the edge of the box. The players have enough quality to test the keeper from those sorts of positions and with Grimsby happy to defend the area within their box, that should’ve opened up the opportunity to shoot from slightly further out. It’s not a guaranteed way to score goals but if no-one even tries it then it just adds to the predictability going forward. If Grimsby know that the likes of Gilbey and Jack Payne aren’t going to shoot from outside the box, then they don’t have to commit men to pressing them when they get the ball in those positions. At the very least it would’ve tested the keeper a little bit.
Finally, there has to be a discussion about team selection. Experimenting with your team can be a good thing, Alex Gilbey playing further up the pitch is a great example of that. However, there are only so many experiments you can run at once before the whole thing collapses. There was no good reason to be playing Stephen Wearne as a wingback when you have Cameron Norman on the bench. Alternatively, Daniel Harvie could’ve played wingback with Dean Lewington slotting in at left centre-back. Any of these variations are more familiar than what Mike Williamson decided to go with. It also meant that when Williamson needed some more attacking players to come on whilst chasing the game, he couldn’t because he only had Norman, Lewington, Ethan Robson and Nathan Harness left on the bench. This also leads to the question as to why the seventh bench spot wasn’t used, even if that player was unlikely to play. It certainly begs the question as to why Anthony Stewart is still at the club if we would rather play with six subs than put him in a match-day squad.
Williamson is a very intelligent manager and he’s done fantastically well this season but on this occasion, he got it wrong. The good news is that most of the other top sides slipped up as well and Dons will have a chance to put things right by beating promotion rivals Crewe on Saturday.
If you’ve read this far then thank you! I’d love to hear your thoughts on the game in the comments below and I hope you enjoyed the read!
