AFC WIMBLEDON vs BOLTON WANDERERS LEAGUE ONE SATURDAY 7th MARCH 2020

Welcome to Kingsmeadow where we play host this weekend to the league's bottom side Bolton Wanderers. Both sides are struggling for a run of form and draw far too many games while Bolton did manage a win against Tranmere which might be a good thing for us this is clearly a side that needs to rebuild for the future having had plenty of problems over past few seasons. The Dons have managed a few points but lacked a win for a while until our latest 2-1 away win against Gillingham with a late winner from Callum Reilly. That result followed a boring but handy point against Ipswich which was followed up with an excellent 2-2 draw away against the league leaders Rotherham. In between those matches we also managed to get battered by Oxford 5-0 so it would be nice for us to have a win of that calibre here today. All those results mean we are now up to 19th position in the table on 34 points, but that's 8 points above Tranmere Rovers who are in the drop zone and we are also in touch with a few clubs above us so it's not going to be that desperate miracle needed this season perhaps. Back in January the Plough Lane Bond was launched and has cleared the initial target of £5m raised all done by the superb fans and all in a fairly short space of time, truly awesome and means we are much closer to making a return 'home' a reality this summer !! You can click here to see details of the Plough Lane Bond, and to steal their catch phrase "It's Time We Had a Home Game".

FORM GUIDE
(Last 6 matches in league one, the most recent result shown from left to right)
AFC Wimbledon -- WDLDDL
Bolton Wanderers -- DLLLLL

LAST TIME OUT
Gillingham 1 AFC Wimbledon 2
Bolton Wanderers 0 Accrington Stanley 0

Our opponents Bolton were always going to be struggling this season not just with the points deduction for administration but the fall out of their last few seasons and losing nearly all their first team players. Probably already down in all but name but showed in the 2-2 draw with the Dons that they will keep fighting and this is no easy three points despite their form showing five straight defeats prior to the game with Accrington last weekend. Currently sitting in 23rd place on 12 points some 21 points away from safety with the Dons now slightly above the drop zone. Hopefully they will be able to regroup with the inevitable relegation down in League Two and haven't succumbed like Bury FC sadly have. Updates will be published with team updates and more as and when it comes through, the Dons winning goalscorer against Gillingham Callum Reilly looks likely to start again now after his recent groin injury kept him out for a while.

Starting Line Ups (Confirmed);

AFC WIMBLEDON

Odds -- 11/10 (William Hill) 

Day (Gk),  O'Neill,  Thomas,  Bech Sørensen,  Wagstaff (c),  McLoughlin,  Hartigan,  Reilly,  Guinness-Walker,  Appiah,  Pigott

Subs – Trott (Gk),  McDonald,  Roscrow,  Pinnock,  Lamy,  Rudoni,  Sanders

BOLTON WANDERERS

Odds -- 23/10 (William Hill) 

Matthews (Gk),  Lowe (c),  Nsiala,  Delaney,  Fleming,  Politic,  Murphy,  Hamilton,  Dodoo,  Crawford,  Murphy

Subs –  Alexander (Gk),  Emmanuel,  Bunney,  Georgiou,  Faal,  Brockbank,  Darcy

Selected Bets on today's match;
Wimbledon to win and BOTH teams to score @5/1.
Over 1.5 Goals (1st half) @2/1.
Penalty Awarded and Scored @9/2.
Red Card in the match @11/2.

⚽H/T Score – 0 - 0

First Half Comment;
It's Wimbledon that kick off in this important relegation encounter here at Kingsmeadow, it's a cold day but three points would warm us up somewhat. Not much to take heart from this half as Bolton seem to be on the front foot with more possession, more chances, more corners too. I don't quite understand how we play better against teams in the top six and struggle so much with the other teams in the bottom. It's still 0-0 so we might be able to get something out of this maybe in the second half. Best efforts so far coming from Guinness-Walker and Callum Reilly, more please.

⚽F/T Score – 0 - 0

Match Summary;

Complete waste of 90 mins, never looked likely to win, and all of them need to have a long hard look at themselves, very very poor game against the worst team in the league, failure to beat them home and away might see us go down with them. Feel for the other fans that make the effort, put their time and money into the club only to be served up that crap. Seriously if you think that was worth paying for you are delusional. 

My Man of the Match – no one, absolute crap all of them, should be ashamed of that very poor effort.

Referee -- Our match official for this game will be Mr Marc Edwards relatively young and was only promoted from the National League this season, hopefully he'll have a good game and it's noted he did take charge of the reverse fixture a 2-2 draw up at Bolton. He will be assisted by Andrew Laver and Daniel Cook on the sidelines with the Fourth Official duties under the care of Abbas Khan.

Attendance – 4,804.

Dons next league match:
Saturday 14th March vs Doncaster Rovers (Away)
League One Kick off 3:00pm