Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 2:48 pm
Posts: 4814
Location: In the Armchair.
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THE CAZBAR BIG GAME PREVIEW – ACCRINGTONWell, if you read my preview last week you might just recall that I didn’t think there would be much between the two sides, also in terms of goals, and of course I flagged up Cole “The Goal” Stockton who was making his home debut, perhaps I should keep my mouth shut in future, which will probably suit some of you.
Looking at the game again…..I think if you had just pitched up at the game without an affinity to either side, and no working knowledge of LG 2 and the placings, I would have had a job to convince you this was a top 6 clash in LG 2. For me it was pretty dull, and devoid of much quality with both teams struggling to find their “A game”.
Both teams did have opportunities to score until Stockton took advantage of us going 2 for 2 at the back and showed his class to score the only goal of the game. I did note that someone did say on social media it was the fault of our rookie keeper, but thats utter rubbish, you can accuse him of a few things but being responsible for the goal is wrong.
Whilst on the subject of our new keeper, his shot stopping ability is becoming more evident as his is distribution, but what is still concerning is ability to deal with crosses. At 6ft 5ins he should be commanding his box with ease, but he is anything but that which is confusing the hell out of me as he played 19 games for Gateshead on their way to winning the National League North, and of course under the leadership of Williamson. OK he is still only 20, and he will improve, I’m just concerned if he doesn’t get a grip of his 6 yard box, and quickly, it’s going to make our job a lot harder. You have to say there must be a decent keeper in there somewhere as MW wouldn’t have signed him twice, like I said….confusing.
As it happens the result against Barrow hasn’t done too much damage as most teams around us performed equally as bad as us with 9 out of the top 11 failing to win, it certainly hasn’t ended our promotion hopes with 17 games to go as one or two have ridiculously said on social media. There are 51 points still up for grabs and some people really need to get a grip on reality, this is not the end of our campaign, but I will say we need to get back to winning straight away or a few doubts might start creeping into the players heads.
So, Accrington, a bounce back to winning ways, or are the doubts going to start creeping in…..hopefully we can shed some light on it.
Below are the league positions plus the home form of us and the away form of Accy.
Dons (6th) – P 29, W 14, D 6, L 9, GF 47, GA 37, Pts 48.
Accy (11th) – P 29, W 12, D 6, L 11, GF 42, GA 38, Pts 42.
Dons (H) (4th) – P 15, W 9, D 3, L 3, GF 26, GA 15, Pts 30.
Accy (A) (13th) – P 13, W 4, D 3, L 6, GF 17, GA 20, Pts 15.
Before we put on our analysing hats, below are Stanley’s away league results, with as usual the most recent result shown first.
Forest Green 0 Accrington 1
Barrow 1 Accrington 1
Harrogate 2 Accrington 1
Crewe 3 Accrington 3
Bradford 1 Accrington 0
Crawley 3 Accrington 1
AFC 2 Accrington 4
Grimsby 0 Accrington 2
Morecambe 1 Accrington 1
Tranmere 2 Accrington 0
Notts Co 3 Accrington 1
Salford 1 Accrington 2
Gillingham 1 Accrington 0
Two of those fairly recent results deserve our focus with Barrow and Crewe having strong home records, and Accy managed to do what we couldn’t and took a share of the spoils in both games, from that the only conclusion I can come to is we have a game on our hands, make no mistake this is not going to be a walk in the park.
Top scorer, penalty taker, and leading assists man with 9 goals and 6 assists is left sided attacking midfielder come winger Jack Nolan who is in his third season with Stanley after moving from Walsall. Another danger is his opposite wingman Joe Pritchard with 6 goals and 4 assists, but I note he came on as a second half sub last weekend and lasted barely 30 minutes before having to be subbed off himself, so he may not make it to the starting line.
While we have major concerns over our keeper I’ll suggest the opposite is the case for Stanley who signed a couple of weeks ago Radek Vitek on loan from Man Utd. He’s already proved his worth with vital saves and is yet to concede in the two games he has played…..getting concerned yet.
The manager at Accrington is the highly respected John Coleman who is very much a part of the furniture for the “Owd Reds” having been there since 2014, and that’s after nearly a 13 year spell previously from 1999 to 2012. His career stats are P 1275, W 517, D 321, L 437, giving him a career Win Ratio of around 40%, and anyone that can achieve those stats over such a long career at this level is certainly no mug.
We have already lost to Accrington this season back in late October and was MW’s first defeat for the Dons that saw us drop to 18th,. We only had one shot on target despite 63% possession, a familiar story you have to agree and if I recall correctly Mo had several chances but couldn’t hit the target once, and with the victory Accy moved into 7th place. One other thing of note is the attendance was just shy of 2,000, and that with around 300 Dons fans attending.
Below are the details of our history with Accy, with all the Dons scorers.
2006/07 – Accrington 3 MK Dons 4 (LG2) (O’Hanlon, McLeod, Wilbraham 2)
2006/07 – MK Dons 3 Accrington 1 (LG2) (O’Hanlon, Andrews, Stirling)
2007/08 – MK Dons 5 Accrington 0 (LG2) (Andrews, Navarro, Cameron, Dyer 2)
2007/08 – Accrington 0 MK Dons 1 (LG2) (Wright)
2019/20 – Accrington 2 MK Dons 1 (Agard)
2020/21 – Accrington 2 MK Dons 1 (Morris)
2020/21 – MK Dons 3 Accrington 2 (Jerome 2, O’Riley)
2021/22 – MK Dons 2 Accrington 0 (Eisa, O’Riley)
2021/22 – Accrington 1 MK Dons 1 (Eisa)
2022/23 – MK Dons 1 Accrington 1 (Robson)
2022/23 – Accrington 0 MK Dons 1 (KaiKai)
2023/24 – Accrington 1 MK Dons 0
P 12, W 7, D 2, L 3, GF 23, GA 13.
The betting is something of a mystery to me with Accrington touted at 9/2, trust me that is very long, and I would imagine there will be a few think that is too good a value to miss.
MK Dons 4/6, Draw 16/5, Accrington 9/2.
So then, in summary, I know we have a decent home record, and I know we have a decent record against Stanley at home, but that 9/2 price from the bookies is staggering, this game is far closer than that price suggests.
The obvious concerns are about creating chances and more importantly converting them. With the greatest respect Ellis Harrison is not Max Dean, and we don’t know enough about Emre Tezgel yet to form an opinion, hopefully with a week in training he is more informed of what is expected of him. Then if we create chances we still have to get past the Man Utd loanee keeper who must be brimming with confidence after two clean sheets in his two games.
The only conclusion that I can therefore reach is if our midfield don’t step up and fill the void left by the Max Dean injury, that 9/2 might be seen to be a major error by the bookies.
In particular Dan Kemp needs to show the form he did at Swindon as I think it’s fair to say he hasn’t so far, he hasn’t been a disaster, but he needs to lift his game.
I’m also going to say that the defence needs to improve its performance, just lately they haven’t look so self-assured, in particular the skipper has looked well below par, doubts about the keeper possibly, but still, that doesn’t excuse O’Hora and Harvie arguing with each other up at Barrow, that is very concerning.
I really hope I’m wrong, but I think this going to be a draw….at best.
Sorry, I just can’t get out of my head that Accy away form recently, the oppo keeper, Max Dean being injured, and yes I know one person doesn’t make a team, but our alternatives haven’t yet shown us they are capable of leading the line. We certainly need some good news from the injury room to give us a boost.
I’m signing off with this, a few weeks ago I looked at the size of the squad and I thought, bloody hell we have alternatives everywhere, but on Saturday we had to resort to Ilunga and Tripp on the bench alongside a rookie striker with little or no experience….how did that happen.
Until next time.
 WD
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Read the MELTDOWN after every game, no bullshit, just giving it straight
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