Half-hearted and toothless

Reporter: MATTHEW CHAMBERS
Date published: 26 February 2014


Athletic 1, MK Dons 2

THE WAIT for a second back-to-back winning sequence in 2013-14 goes on.

Not since November has Athletic managed to follow one victory with another. Supporters – those few who showed up last night – were left contemplating a putrid opening half from the team.

This is a team that, much to its manager’s frustration, can’t find a collective will to produce on anything like a consistent basis.

A couple of moments summed up what went wrong within a rejigged line-up last night. There was the pass from Jon Stead, around 35 yards from the Dons’ goal, which was sent behind left-back Jonathan Grounds and straight out for a throw-in inside Athletic’s own half.

Then, when Stead did play a neat ball into space for Connor Brown to race to, the right-back

mysteriously halted his run to slow the attack and funnel the ball inside to a congested area.

Athletic weren’t just poor in the first half, they were lethargic, unimaginative, slow to press, slow to react and strangely lacking in confidence.

Even with Gary Harkins as the only creative force, Athletic were incapable of improvising.

Johnson will be criticised for his selection policy: Carl Winchester surely deserved a start – fitness was given as a reason he didn’t – and his stand-in Terry Dunfield looked bemused in the first 24 seconds, when he lost his man and allowed Ben Reeves a shot that Mark Oxley did well to fend away.

MK Dons kept pouring forward and gained their reward with fewer than three minutes of play. Stephen Gleeson saw his first effort blocked, but George Baldcok was there to drive home the rebound.

Harkins and Stead hit ambitious efforts which failed to trouble the visitors and though recalled striker Charlie MacDonald was putting in a big shift, Athletic’s 4-4-2 formation was being picked off with ease.

Antony Kay’s header from a corner was well cleared off the line by Brown, and four minutes before Johnson had a chance to give the home dressing room a rollicking, Izale McLeod took advantage of swipe by Adam Lockwood to go clear down the middle and slot home his eighth goal of the season. It could easily have been three by half-time.

The triple substitution which saw Jonson Clarke-Harris, Winchester and James Dayton introduced gave Athletic some much-needed spark.

Clarke-Harris in particular looked like a man with a point to prove. Good work between him and Harkins led to the corner that MacDonald planted home with his head.

The pattern for the final third of the game was set, with the Dons sitting deep to soak up the pressure.

Athletic, playing with three at the back and wing-backs in Brown and Dayton, charged forward but

couldn’t find substantial chinks in the armour.

Clarke-Harris had a shot blocked in the box, and MacDonald’s attempts to steal in at the near post were denied by a point-blank save from David Martin. Harkins scuffed a half-chance and Wesolowski saw another attempt charged down. But even a point would have been more than the stand-in captain’s men deserved