Cook: We Know We Have to Get Up to Speed, We Know We Have to Win Games Friday, 27th Aug 2021 12:10 Town host AFC Wimbledon at Portman Road on Saturday still looking for their first league win of the season. Manager Paul Cook was at Sixfields on Tuesday where the Dons beat Northampton 1-0 in the Carabao Cup with Anthony Hartigan netting the goal in the final minute. Wednesday’s draw saw them handed a glamour third-round tie against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium. “I was at Northampton and I thoroughly enjoyed the game,” Cook said. “I thought Wimbledon played really well, probably a different system than they may play tomorrow, probably with quite a few different personnel but clearly a team who are playing with great belief, great structure. “I think Mark [Robinson] has done an excellent job in his short tenure as manager and they’re a really big threat, but then so are every team you play. “Every team offers a different challenge at League One level, there are no secrets anymore, everybody is very coached, everyone is very well analysed, and everyone knows what’s coming. “So we’ve got to make sure when we get onto that pitch tomorrow that we’re better than Wimbledon at most aspects of what we’re trying to do.” Cook says it’s beneficial to see an opposition team in the flesh rather than relying on video footage. “I think when you watch a team as a coach or a manager or even as an analyst or a scout, you’re trying to work out what they are trying to do and once you’ve worked out what they’re trying to do, it helps you to possibly try and stop them or it helps you try and adjust and change for them. “For us, once you know what teams are trying to do, it allows us to do our analysis on them, it allows us to come up with a game plan, although our game plan at the minute doesn’t change greatly for every team. “Our game plan at the minute is very much based on how good can we be and how much better can we get. “So we respect every team we play, without a shadow of a doubt, we know they’ve got good players, but the most important thing for us is now is bringing a complete 90-minute performance to a game.”
“For us as a team, you watch us and one minute you look at us and think ‘Wow, we’re showing some really good signs’. “The other minute you look at us and go ‘How naive, and young and inexperienced are they?’ So only time and games will bring us stronger and better.” Cook has options all over the pitch having made 16 signings over the course of the summer, not least at left-back where Hayden Coulson was handed his debut ahead of Matt Penney, who had started all the other games this season, in last Saturday’s 2-2 draw with the MK Dons. “Always a tough decision — every decision,” Cook reflected. “Matt Penney has been excellent and trained really, really well this week. Hayden Coulson has come in and we want competition for places in all areas of the pitch. That’s what good clubs have. “Predominantly up to now we haven’t had much competition in many places on the pitch, we’ve had lads who are picking themselves and we’ve been picking lads who probably won’t last 90 minutes because they haven’t had good pre-seasons because they’ve come in late. “So all of those excuses will soon go out of the window and the race will start being run in my world in earnest. “We know we have to get up to speed, we know we have to win games, we know we have to stop giving silly goals away. “But one of the biggest qualities this team has is the ability to score good goals, I think everybody has seen that and when you carry that punch as a fighter or a football club, you carry a punch. “And we carry that now, we know we have to develop the other aspects of the game for sure and that will result in us being a better team with more points on the board.” Despite the Blues sitting in 20th in League One, following two home draws and two away defeats, only three sides have scored more than their total of six. At the other end of the field, Town have conceded eight, the most in the division alongside Cheltenham and the MK Dons. Cook probably won’t stray too far from the team which drew with MK last weekend, although says one or two of his injured players will be fit, but wouldn’t divulge precisely who they might be. Vaclav Hladky will be in goal with Coulson probably getting the nod again at left-back and Kane Vincent-Young at right-back. If fit, George Edmundson will probably make his Town debut alongside Cameron Burgess at the centre of the defence with Luke Woolfenden dropping to the bench. In midfield, Tom Carroll is likely to come into consideration for a first start in place of either skipper Lee Evans or Rekeem Harper. Kyle Edwards will be on the left, Wes Burns on the right and Scott Fraser in the middle behind lone out-and-out striker Macauley Bonne, who will be looking to add to his three Portman Road goals in his first two league games at his local club’s home ground. Sone Aluko, who is over his knock, is likely to be on the bench, as may Conor Chaplin, James Norwood and Toto Nsiala if they’re among the players Cook says have also recovered from fitness issues. Wimbledon have no new injuries going into the game with defenders Jack Madelin and Luke Jenkins the only absentees. The Wombles could face striker Joe Pigott, who left Plough Lane for Portman Road in the summer, at some stage on Saturday and assistant head coach Rob Tuvey says he rates the 27-year-old very highly. Pigott scored 54 goals in 130 starts and 27 sub appearances in three and a half years with the Dons. “I think he’s definitely up there [with Wimbledon’s best strikers] if you look at the service he gave to the club, both on and off the pitch,” he told his club’s official website. “He was a massive part of our dressing room last year and hopefully the Wimbledon fans will give him a great reception on Saturday, but we want to be celebrating three points with them afterwards. “Joe was fantastic for us and someone who we’ve all kept in contact with. We wish him well for the future.” Tuvey says their side this season is more versatile than it was in 2020/21 and there will be aspects of their play that will be unfamiliar to Pigott. “This season myself and Robbo [manager Robinson] have had longer with the group to try to implement new ideas that Joe has potentially not seen,” he added. “But ultimately we will go there with a game plan and I think the nice thing that people will have seen is that we’ve got flexibility in our side — for personnel and formations. “Whatever we choose to go with on the day, we’ve got the opportunity to change formations and players. That’s going to be a strength for us moving forward. “They are definitely a different side because there was a lot of recruitment in the summer, but you are always know that Ipswich will be a tough test. “When you play against Paul’s teams you know that they are going to play a good brand of football and attacking style of football as well. “They’ve definitely been unfortunate in a few games this season as they’ve created a lot of chances. “We know the threats that they pose, but in every game we’ve played so far we have carried a good threat. “We haven’t been out of any of the games so far and we want to go there and put our mark on it. “We want to take the game to them in the best way we can. It is about 80 per cent us and 20 per cent them. We’ve looked at them, gone through that 20 per cent, and hopefully we can put our mark down on the day.” Until 2019/20, Town and AFC Wimbledon had never met anywhere in a competitive or friendly fixture since the Dons’ formation in 2002. Since then, Town have won one of the four games, Wimbledon one and two have been draws. At Portman Road in April, Town’s goal drought stretched beyond the 10-hour mark as they drew 0-0 with the Dons, their fifth stalemate in eight games. Dai Cornell saved a penalty from Pigott in a first half dominated by the visitors, while the then-Dons striker also went closest for Town when he headed against his own bar in the second half. Eleven days prior to that, the Wombles comfortably beat the Blues 3-0 at Plough Lane with Will Nightingale, Jack Rudoni and Ryan Longman scoring the goals. Nightingale headed in the opener on 21, Rudoni nodded home the second four minutes later, then in the 28th minute Town loanee Josh Harrop was shown a straight red card for a late challenge. Sub Longman added the third in the 86th minute to complete a thoroughly miserable evening for Town. Saturday’s referee is David Rock from Hertfordshire, who has shown six yellow cards and no red in four games so far this season. Rock’s last Town match was the 3-3 pre-season friendly draw at Colchester in July with his most recent competitive Blues game the 1-1 draw at MK Dons in October last year in which he booked Flynn Downes and two home players. Prior to that, Rock’s only previous Town fixture was as a replacement referee in the 3-0 defeat at Watford in March 2011. Having been the fourth official, Rock took over from fellow Hertfordshire whistler Grant Hegley in the 10th minute after he had suffered a hamstring injury, showing yellow cards to two Hornets and no Blues. Squad from: Hladky, Holy, Vincent-Young, Donacien, Penney, Coulson, Burgess, Woolfenden, Edmundson, Nsiala, Evans (c), Harper, Carroll, El Mizouni, Fraser, Burns, Chaplin, Aluko, Dobra, Edwards, Pigott, Bonne, Barry, Jackson, Norwood.
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