Downes backs Dons to embark on survival surge after precious win

Posted Wednesday, February 13, 2019 by PA

AFC Wimbledon boss Wally Downes believes his side can use their 1-0 win at League One relegation rivals Walsall as a springboard to an unlikely survival mission.

Steve Seddon’s close-range strike saw the bottom side narrow the gap to safety from 10 points to seven.

The victory snapped the Dons’ four-game losing streak ahead of their FA Cup fifth-round tie at home to Millwall on Saturday.

Downes insists his side can still stay up as he said: “There are 42 points left to play for, an awful lot of points left to gain.

“We’ve had a couple of bad results before tonight and the teams around us have had good results, that’s why the gap has built up.

“We haven’t had that run yet – tonight has given us a great base now for us to go on our run.

“You take confidence from an away win and a clean sheet and now we need to maintain that level of consistency.

“And now there’s a chance in the next month, the next five or six games, that we can get a run going.

“I’ve seen fight and determination and a willingness to work hard in games, and I’ve seen some terrific football in games.

“Tonight was a happy mixture – we had to defend for our lives but we also created enough chances. We made some good chances and on another night perhaps we could have had more than one.”

Only a string of fine saves from Walsall keeper Liam Roberts denied Wimbledon a more emphatic win as he denied Anthony Wordsworth, Michael Folivi and Joe Pigott, who also hit the post.

It is now four straight defeats for Walsall, with manager Dean Keates admitting they are in freefall, sitting just two points above the drop zone.

Keates said: “It’s not a good position and there’s no papering over cracks – we are freefalling and we will be considered everybody’s favourites to go down, even though we are eighth from bottom and there are seven teams below us.

“It’s still in our hands but we need to find something, we need a building block to build on, something to stop the rot. There are seven teams who would rather be in our position.

“It’s about confidence. It’s massive in football. When you are up there and you are flying, everything goes for you.

“When you are down there, you start over-analysing, this goes against us, that goes against us, a bobble goes against us, you’re hanging on to every decision that the referee doesn’t give you.

“We’ve got to get away from that. There’s only us that can turn it around and we have to be braver. We’ve got to get back what it was.”