AFC Wimbledon were 'naive' as they threw away Portsmouth point and weren't switched on to John Marquis threat

Glyn Hodges accused his AFC Wimbledon side of naivety as they fell at Fratton Park
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Hodges admitted his side weren’t at the races as they were pummelled in the first half by Kenny Jackett’s men.

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But after levelling the former Wimbledon player felt poor defending hurt them for John Marquis’ winner.

Hodges said: ‘The first-half was so disappointing. It wasn’t what we expected, and it wasn’t how we do things.

‘We gave a poor goal away in the first-half, we gifted them that.

‘We got ourselves back in the game, which is hard here anyway, and then we are thinking “great, we are on the front foot, we are doing okay”.

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‘Then all of a sudden, another fundamental way of defending, as we have key areas that we work on, has disappeared again. Two things that we work so hard on let us down.

AFC Wimbledon boss Glyn Hodges felt his side weren't switched on to John Marquis' threat in their 2-1 loss to Pompey. Photo: Barry ZeeAFC Wimbledon boss Glyn Hodges felt his side weren't switched on to John Marquis' threat in their 2-1 loss to Pompey. Photo: Barry Zee
AFC Wimbledon boss Glyn Hodges felt his side weren't switched on to John Marquis' threat in their 2-1 loss to Pompey. Photo: Barry Zee

‘It’s a physical challenge and I think one of our defenders got nudged for the goal and you can complain about that, but it’s part of football. Perhaps we have to be a bit cuter in how we do things. Sometimes maybe we can be a bit naïve, but I said to them afterwards that I couldn’t fault them for effort.’

Hodges believes his team should have been more switched on to Marquis threat when he was sent on as second-half sub by Jackett as Pompey chased the game.

He saw both the goals Wimbledon conceded as ‘gifts’ to the home side.

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Hodges added: ‘We showed what we can do, but the two goals we gave away were gifts, they were exactly what we aim not to do. It’s a learning curve, we have to pick ourselves up, and we have another big game next Saturday.

‘When they changed their shape to 4-2-4 we should have known that they had two centre forwards and they were going to put more crosses in.

‘That’s the disappointing thing, we didn’t switch onto that as early as we should have done. We will learn from it, move on, and get better.’

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