ROVERS ON EDGE OVER THE DROP
BRISTOL Rovers boss Darrell Clarke is demanding more from his players after they slipped closer to the League Two dropzone.
Rovers were out-played for most of the match by Wimbledon, and a draw keeps them just four points ahead of second-bottom Northampton following their win.
It took a superb save from Steve Mildenhall to deny Jack Midson after 75 minutes to make sure the Gas did not go home empty-handed, but Clarke was no under illusions about his team’s performance.
“It’s a point closer to where we need to be going at but Wimbledon will count themselves unfortunate that they did not win the game,” he said.
“It’s tense, you can see that with the players. They’re tense, they’re edgy, they don’t want to make mistakes, but we need more. I’m not going to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes.
“We’ve got to be better in all areas of the pitch. But I have a full week on the training pitch to work on a few mindsets as well as training because I’m concerned one or two are going through the motions a little bit and letting the occasions get to them when we needed stronger characters.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look at other results, but it’s all in our hands. We’ve got teams to play who are down there, so we need characters, mentally strong players and to do better than we did.”
Midson’s second-half effort was the closest either side came to opening the scoring, with Rovers’ Lee Brown blocking George Francomb’s follow- up following the initial Mildenhall save.
Despite creating next-to-nothing, the visitors had a good shout for a penalty turned down by referee Tim Robinson when Matt Harrold tangled with Dons defender Darren Jones.
The point keeps Wimbledon six points above the bottom two, and despite firing a blank, boss Neal Ardley could take encourage with Crystal Palace loanee Kwesi Appiah’s first league start.
“I thought he was excellent, I thought he looked like he might score, he got a couple of good shots off,” he said.
“He didn’t dart across defenders or get onto crosses into the box. He will learn in this league you can’t out-jump these centre-halves.
“But he was assured, had a very good touch, good movement.This was a test with the pace of it and it’s been really pleasing from him.
“Jack [Midson] and Kwesi had a good understanding and I thought they might make things happen.
“All week we’re working at going forward, we’re working at scoring goals. We’ve done everything we practiced but we just couldn’t get the ball into the back of the net.
“We need to pick up a win or two from the remaining five games to get us where we need to go. But if we put performances in like that
we won’t be far away.”