DAN’S DELIGHTED TO BE UNBEATEN
DANIEL Stendel was pleased with his Barnsley team’s unbeaten start to the season, despite drawing a blank at home to Wimbledon.
Barnsley started the match strongly as the first chance fell to Brad Potts, who fired over after Dimitri Cavare won the ball high up the pitch.
The visitors responded as Adam Davies did well to deny a long-range effort from Tom Soares in the 12th minute.
Having held firm for the opening half an hour, Wimbledon had an opportunity from a free-kick in the 33rd minute. Scott Wagstaff was brought down just outside the area and Kwesi Appiah floated his effort just over the bar.
On the stroke of half-time, the Reds counter-attacked through Mamadou Thiam as he squared the ball to Alex Mowatt on the edge of the box, but he placed his shot wide of the mark.
In a tightly contested affair, Wimbledon’s defence stayed resolute under sustained pressure from the hosts.
Appiah could have put the Dons ahead in the 56th minute but he shot straight at the keeper after good link-up play with Wagstaff.
The introductions of George Moncur, Jordan Williams and Victor Adeboyejo added new impetus for Stendel’s side and Barnsley’s best chance of the second half came when Kieffer Moore ran on to a long ball before crossing to Tom Bradshaw, but his shot was well blocked by Deji Oshilaja.
The Dons made two changes with just under 10 minutes to go, with top scorer Joe Pigott replacing Appiah and Toby Sibbick coming on for Tennai Watson at rightback. Stendel said: “In the end it’s still a clean sheet and we’re happy with that.
“If you told me three weeks ago that we would have seven points after three matches then I would have certainly taken it.
“We made a good start to the match and created lots of chances from our crosses.
“I think if we could have been a bit more ruthless then we might have scored and won the match at the end.
“In the second half, we still had a positive attitude but we were up against a very strong and physical opponent so it wasn’t easy to create chances.”
The Barnsley manager added: “We would have had to take a risk and we didn’t want to do that because we could get caught on the break.”
When asked if he was frustrated by Wimbledon’s performance, he said: “No, we have to find a way and if we win in the last 20 minutes or from a set-piece, it would be fine for us. I feel that I would probably do the same when they play against us again.”
No-one from AFC Wimbledon attended the post-match press conference.