AFC WIMBLEDON v FLEETWOOD TOWN LEAGUE ONE SATURDAY 8th FEBRUARY

Already into February now and not many more months left for the Dons to stay up for another season and also take additional steps towards a return to Plough Lane and the new stadium. This Saturday we have another home game against Joey Barton's Fleetwood Town. Recent Dons form is very mixed, a 1-0 win against Peterborough was followed by a hard fought 2-2 draw against Burton Albion but sadly last weekend we went down 2-1 against Accrington Stanley. So if the sequence is repeated we due a win yeah? We did manage to sign a new player Rotherham forward Julien Lamy on loan who has made five first-team appearances for League One leaders Rotherham, has joined the Dons for the rest of this season. Earlier in January the Dons Bond was launched and is currently over the expected £2.5m mark raised in it's opening two weeks !! You can click here to see details of the Dons Bond, and to steal their catch phrase "It's Time We Had a Home Game" really think we can get this closer to the £4m+ mark when the deadline closes on 14th Feb. Back to this weekend's fixture and a look at our head to head stats finds they are totally even, 4 wins, 4 defeats and 4 draws in our previous encounters. Wimbledon are still struggling but are still battling above the drop zone in 20th place on 28 points and 6 clear of Tranmere, so it's still in our hands and reaching 40 points might well be enough this season.

FORM GUIDE
(Last 6 matches in league one, the most recent result shown from left to right)
AFC Wimbledon -- LDWLDL
Fleetwood Town -- WDDDLD

LAST TIME OUT

Accrington Stanley 2 AFC Wimbledon 1
Fleetwood Town 2 Doncaster Rovers 1

Our opponents today are Fleetwood Town and they are performing well for manager Joey Barton and currently sit in 9th place in the league on 42 points so far this season, they are currently only 5 points off the play off places. Fleetwood Town were also busy in the January transfer window and were able to sign up Everton's Lewis Gibson, Swansea City's Barrie McKay and Norwich City's Isak Thorvaldsson on loan until the end of the season. McKay, 25, moved to Nottingham Forest from Rangers in 2017 and joined the Swans the following year. McKay's fellow midfielder Thorvaldsson, 18, captains Iceland's Under-19 side and England youth defender Gibson, 19, has not played for the Premier League side since joining from Newcastle in 2017.  Further updates will be published with team news and more as and when it comes through.

Starting Line Ups (Confirmed);

AFC WIMBLEDON

Odds -- 12/5 (William Hill) 

Day (Gk),  ⚽O'Neill,  Hartigan,  Thomas,  Pinnock,  ⚽McLoughlin,  Rudoni,  Reilly,  Osew,  Sorensen,  Pigott (c)

Subs – Trott (Gk),  Roscrow,  Guinness-Walker,  🟨Lamy,  McDonald,  Sanders,  Wordsworth

FLEETWOOD TOWN 
Odds -- 11/10 (William Hill) 

Cairns (Gk),  Coyle,  🟨Connolly,  Souttar,  Gibson,  Andrew,  Burns,  Whelan,  Sowerby,  Morris,  🟨Evans (c)  

Subs –  Crellin (Gk), Coutts,  ⚽Madden,  McKay,  Saunders,  Hill,  Thorvaldsson

Selected Bets on today's match;
Wimbledon to win and BOTH teams to score @7/1.

Over 1.5 Goals (1st half) @2/1.  YES !! 

Penalty Awarded and Scored @4/1.

Red Card in the match @11/2.

⚽H/T Score – 1 - 1  [McLoughlin  34'    O'Neill 22' og]

First Half Comment;
Wimbledon kick off on a bright but cold afternoon here at Kingsmeadow, hopefully we can perform better in the opening period as we tend to start slowly. Paul Osew has the first shot in anger but doesn't trouble the Fleetwood keeper we also win the opening corner too and one day it would be nice to make one of these count. Fleetwood's Callum Connolly is shown the yellow card for a bad foul in the opening ten minutes there's also a clash of heads that sees the Dons Bech Sørensen needing some attention but we remain all square approaching the twenty minute mark. And then of course the visitors score from a corner as Dons keeper comes and misses and the ball goes in off defender Luke O'Neill and we are 0-1 down and then we decide to substitute Rod McDonald on for the injured Mads Bech Sørensen. YES !! Goal on 34 minutes for the Dons, Shane McLoughlin buries a header from very close range to the bottom right supplied from a Jack Rudoni cross, can we build on this before half time?.

⚽F/T Score – 1 - 2  [Madden 81']

Match Summary;
16 Corners, and plenty of other chances but the Dons just don't have the firepower (or a big nasty centre half) to dominate these games and lost it with nine minutes to go when Paddy Madden scored for the visitors to make it 1-2.

My Man of the Match – Shane McLoughlin.

Match Officials -- Our match referee for this game will be David Rock from Hertfordshire, has been officiating in League Two in the main this season, so we'll see how he handles the slight step up again but note he did take control of the National League play off Final last term. His assistants will be Matthew Lee and Dean Treleaven while the fourth official is Bhupinder Gill.

Attendance – 4.097.

Dons next league match:
Tuesday 11th February vs Ipswich Town (Home)
League One Kick off 7:45pm