Tag Archives: Jamie Stuart

Jul 18 2011
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Dons, General

The Anonymous Don’s Summer Squad Review Part II – Defence

Continuing my look at the current Dons squad, Terry Brown has built his Dons sides from the solid base of an experienced central defensive partnership, with youthful promise waiting in the wings…

CHRIS BUSH

Coming in on loan last season to cover the failed experiment that was Andre Blackman, Bush reminded us what a promising full back should be all about. Obviously raw, bursting with potential, showing no signs of being overawed by playing first team football… the only problem being he wasn’t actually ours. Fortunately we were able to work out a deal with Brentford to secure his services, over joining their development squad, this sort of deal just outlines the way forward for our club over the short and medium term.

Signings such as Bush point the way forward for the club in the short and medium term, unable to fill our squad with a balance of experience, we have to rely on guys just starting their careers. There are obvious negatives in relying on youth, but the benefit is we can at least attract the very best of those who feel they won’t find regular football at bigger clubs.

From Bush’s point of view, immediate first team opportunities are available either battling it out with Gareth Gwillim for the left back slot or providing cover in his prefered position in the centre. Bush will presumably have ambitions to play at a higher level at some point in his career, but for now the competition for places will do him no harm…

FRASER FRANKS

Given the opportunity, TB admitted he would happily have kept both Fraser and Ed Harris, but finances dictated it was always going to be one or the other. The shootout between the pair actually began in pre-season, where it looked as though it was a case only one would be offered a deal, though fortunately both were kept on at the time. The problem we had having two young defensive prospects was I found myself judging them against each other, rather on their own merits to the team.

Ultimately when Ed Harris found himself shipped out on loan the writing was on the wall, regardless of Fraser’s unfortunate injury towards the end of the season which will curtail his involvement in the early stages of this season, particularly when promotion was achieved. In Fraser we have not just another decent prospect but a player that shows intelligence on the field that belies his age.

No better example was shown when the Dons found themselves without a left back for the rearranged home game with Luton. I doubt Fraser had much experience of playing in this position (although he can and has filled in on the right), yet faced with one of the strongest and most experienced attacking forces in the division he held up extremely well.

Going into the new season, and once he gets his fitness back, Fraser will find himself behind the three more experienced centre halves in the squad, yet with a 46 game season approaching, injuries and suspensions will play a part in gaining plenty of experience. Come the end of the Dons first season back in the League, providing he progresses, he might even find himself challenging for a starting place on merit.

GARETH GWILLIM

Joining in January last year to provide cover for the left back role following the departure of Chris Bush. That we now have both of them at the club is a massive bonus in what was something of a problem position last term. As you would expect from a fullback who has spent the majority of his career in non-league football, Gwillim is a tough tackling, solid defender, something the Dons needed as they pushed towards the finish line.

On arrival some supporters, used to left backs such as Bush and Hussey before him, questioned whether he supported us enough going forward, but what we lost going forward Gwillim more than made up for defensively. Perhaps the best example of the battling qualities that will serve us well in League Two next year were shown by battling through the pain barrier against Fleetwood and in the final at Eastlands, after picking up a nasty knock in the first leg at Highbury.

Given a second chance at League football, you would expect Gwillim will find himself given more opportunities than with Dagenham in League One last term. Even more unusually, he held the distinction of being one of the few full-time footballers to hold down a job outside football, working as a contractor for London Underground overnight. This is a different solution to the problem that TB has mentioned that senior players have difficulty supporting a family on the money we pay, but probably not an example I would expect to see too many players follow…

SAM HATTON

Now the Dons longest-serving player, its easy to forget Sam is still so young. Originally arriving at the club as a midfielder, his switch to fullback was a bonus, and from Sam’s perspective has allowed him to go on and rack up more appearances in a Dons shirt than anyone else in the AFC era. Sam probably would have gone on to have a decent career in midfield outside the Football League, perhaps suffering the same problem Ricky Wellard had in stamping his influence on the team.

Yet a full back he now is, and a very good one at that. Drawing comparisons with Chris Hussey is how all AFCW fullbacks will be rated for the foreseeable future, and Sam is a slightly different sort of player. Still as keen to get forward but without the lightning pace, yet probably a better defender, either way he could go on to set the standard himself… now Kedwell and Gregory have departed, given a decent first season at this level we might find clubs in the higher division knocking our door down for Sam’s signature.

BRETT JOHNSON

Having said Sam Hatton might be a top transfer target for clubs next summer, I have to admit I have no idea what Brett Johnson was doing playing in the Conference for two seasons for us. By reaching the Football League he is back in what should be his natural environment, and he probably would have led the exodus of player such as Hatton and Brown along with the two that did leave us should we not have managed to win promotion this year.

Brett was probably the best defender outside the Football League last year, his calm, experienced performances at the back alongside Yakubu were the foundations on which our promotion campaign were built. Yet Brett is so accomplished you can often forget he’s there – as I did when compiling my captaincy poll. With Brett subsequently named vice captain for the season, there is a fair chance we could see him lead the side in Jamie Stuart’s absence. Captain or not, Brett is a key player and our performance next season could well depend on his form.

MAT MITCHEL-KING

I’ll keep it short as far as Mat is concerned as he is a player we know little of. The fact he contracted glandular fever so shortly after joining the club, coupled with his unfortunate injury record, suggest he’s not the luckiest guy in the world, but TB must rate him quite highly… I initially questioned the decision to sign him over Yakubu for next season, but with Brown confirming Yak couldn’t keep up with the training schedule a replacement was required. Here’s hoping mat is back training asap so we can see what he’s made of.

JAMIE STUART

The signing of Jamie during the January window was inspired. When battling for promotion, you can’t get enough leaders on the field, and Jamie Stuart is the sort of character who would at least attempt to run through a wall if asked. Not really too many surprises over the decision to name him as captain. His arrival gave us real strength in-depth defensively; yet this means Jamie will have a fight on his hands for the shirt.

Mat Mitchel-Kings unfortunate illness means he should start the season, but our defensive partnership will be aware any lapse in form could see them sitting on the sidelines. Yet Brown’s decision to name him as captain will probably put any short-term doubts over his first team place to rest for now.

 

 

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Apr 17 2011
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Features, WUP Archive

WUP 8.8

This article was originally published in WUP 8.8, March ’11. With the playoffs looming, Terry Brown’s mid-season acquisitions were reviewed…

What a difference twelve months makes. This time last year, despite attending games left, right, and Gateshead, my mind was elsewhere. The sun had started to show itself and thoughts of beach BBQs and beer gardens were muscling out mediocre football, as the Dons settled for a mid-table finish. This column is written in part to publicise my ever popular and award-winning blog of the same name (for that’s where the good stuff lies… and this wouldn’t be one of those lame marketing plugs if I didn’t now request you ‘Search ‘Anonymous Don’ on Facebook’…), so I decided to check my archive and find out what I thought of the miserable end to the 09/10 campaign – only to find one post, a single line effort apologizing for the lack of updates. I’d never claim to be the most hardcore of supporters, I do a fair few away games and I can be bothered to keep a blog going about my beloved Dons for over two years, but it probably says quite a lot about the standard of entertainment at the time that, to be honest, I just couldn’t be arsed with it.

Flash forward a year, and I’m starting to hope football never ends. We have been richly spoiled this season by the standard of football – ok, not quite good enough to sustain a title challenge, but the sort of improvement we couldn’t have envisaged at the start of the season. The obvious explanation would be our move into the brave new world of professional football, but starting with such a young squad we were always going to be found wanting when the injuries piled up. Fortunately, thanks to ESPN and ITV (and to a lesser extent and entirely unintentionally, a franchise outfit in Buckinghamshire…), we found a bit of cash to supply Terry Brown with a January war chest to pick up the cream of available talent, supplement our threadbare squad and bolster our promotion charge. But hang on… Wasn’t the unsettling introduction of various journeyman loanees one of the reasons we slumped so badly towards the end of 09/10?

Certainly more than one Dons fan pointed out a sense of deja vu between last seasons recruitment drive and this January window, even if the only similarity was the number of bodies passing through the Kingsmeadow entrance. January is always going to be a much harder time of year to bring a player in, everyone who is anywhere near half decent will be on a contract and staying put elsewhere. On top of this, moving to a new side mid-season must be an unsettling experience. Having said that, how have Browns class of 2011 reinforcements worked out? I decided to run the rule over how they have got on so far – but bear in mind like the Man of the Match award announced with ten minutes to go, we still have the most important part of the season remaining…

James Mulley (Hayes & Yeading) – Non-contract

When I was a kid I remember reading a cartoon strip, perhaps in the boxes of old Roy of the Rovers comics my Junior School kept to keep the kids entertained when it rained at lunchtime. Anyway, the story revolved around footballs version of a ‘gun for hire’, a player available on a match by match basis to any club who could afford his fee. Mulley is a little different in that he doesn’t seem to be swayed by money (well, no more than anyone else…), his prime motivation appears to be to play in the Football League. The decision to bring in Mulley was described by TB as a ‘no-brainer’, in that his non-contract status meant he could be discarded if not required, yet it very quickly became apparent that if Mulley were to leave the Dons it would likely be his own decision. Fans were soon fretting he might be snapped up, the club mentioned most were Crawley, which was more an insight into Dons fans paranoia following the Kedwell bids in the summer than any realistic concerns. This wasn’t surprising as he fitted in immediately, and seemed an automatic choice for the rest of the season once Sammy Moore’s kneecap decided to relocate half way up his thigh. A brain-dead red card picked up at Crawley and resulting three match ban coincided with the return to fitness and form of Minshull and Wellard respectively. Will have a big part to play over the remainder of the season, whether he’ll still be with us next season is anyones guess and will probably depend on which division we find ourselves in.

Kirk Hudson (Aldershot) – Loan

On the face of it the loan of Kirk Hudson must have seemed a complete gimme as Brown saw it. With first year professionals Jackson and Jolley having been exceptional, but overdue a run of poor form, we needed someone to fill in for them when required. And Hudson seemed to tick all the boxes. He has pace, isn’t afraid to shoot and can put in a decent cross when inclined. Plus, he’s done it before in this division for this manager. And yet… it hasn’t quite worked out for him so far. I get the impression if he’d joined us in the summer and got the chance to settle in he might have had a storming season, yet joining in mid-season probably hasn’t done him any favours. Perhaps it’s because, mentally, dropping down a division is a step backwards for him? Or perhaps this division has moved on even in the two years since he played in it last? Either way, at the time of writing Luke Moore, Ryan Jackson, a fit again Christian Jolley and new signing Kaid Mohamed are ahead of him in the pecking order to flank Kedwell, and it seems unlikely he’ll play a major part in the remainder of the season. Stranger things have happened, of course…

Jamie Stuart (Rushden) – Nominal Fee

Ed Harris and Fraser Franks hadn’t really done anything wrong covering for the perma-injured Johnson and Yakubu, but the signing of Stuart was a masterstroke. Stuart is a real pro, fitting in immediately, including a standout performance chaperoning a makeshift defence to a clean sheet against Luton. Of course, the irony now is that Johnson and Yakubu returned and consigned Stuart, somewhat unfairly, to a place on the bench. Yet we can be sure that if anything happens to either of them, we have a capable body standing by ready to fill in. In fact, it wouldn’t weaken us too much if it happened, and that’s what you need heading into huge playoff encounters.

Gareth Gwillim (Dagenham) – Loan

The loan signing of Gwillim probably says a lot about the state of football these days in that there are players operating in the two divisions below us who are professional in all but name, yet we find ourselves taking a League One fullback on loan and it turns out he spends most of his evenings maintaining the London Underground. I’m not sure whether Dagenham were aware of this when he turned out for them or if he was just moonlighting? Dons left-backs are going to suffer from Hussey-comparison for the forseeable future, and hoping Gwillim was going to compare going forward was always wishful thinking. What we have really needed, in fact have been crying out for since Hussey departed, was a solid, no-nonsense full-back whose priority is to get the defensive part of the position right, and we have that in Gwillim. A perfect example was his wonderful last-ditch block that prevented a certain goal in the first half at Cambridge – that we dominated the game for eighty minutes was in part down to a solid defensive performance, and we can ony hope Gwillim’s performances go from strength to strength moving into the playoffs.

Drewe Broughton (Lincoln) – Loan

I know he’s gone now, and the circumstances surrounding his departure will presumably be mentioned elsewhere in this esteemed publication, for now I just want to make the following point. Broughton was the perfect example of crap lower league target man (dire first touch, no positional sense, poor scoring record, no pace, etc), yet this sort of player seems to be de rigueur in League Two… perhaps Brown merely signed him six months too early? On the other hand, I have no idea who is responsible for scouting players in the north for us, but judging by the last couple of target men he’s sent our way you have to wonder whether he’s taking the piss…

Kaid Mohamed (Bath) – Permanent

It was nice to see Mo come in and make an impact on his debut. While Broughton appeared to be a square peg in a round hole, Mo is more our sort of player. Of all the new arrivals, Mo’s task must have been tougher than any. To walk into a squad challenging for promotion with little more than a month remaining, and be expected to turn it on immediately was a big ask of anyone, but it looks as though Terry has got this one right, touch wood. He could have added more goals in his first few games but we’ll forgive him for that, his bustling run into the box against Rushden and instinctive finish at Cambridge have shown us he has the potential to score a lot of goals for Wimbledon.

Overall?… There is a reason Steve Evans went out and bought three squads worth of talent was due to signing players not being an exact science. You can scout them as much as you want, you could have managed them in the past, it doesn’t matter… sometimes a move doesn’t work out for no other reason than it just doesn’t. Evans had the money to bring in as many players as he needed (the fact they were parachuted in from League One or the SPL probably helped too…) because he could afford to in order to pretty much guarantee success. Terry Brown didn’t have that luxury, we know he missed out on some of his top targets, so under the circumstances I think he’s done pretty well. Ok, Broughton was a throw of the dice that didn’t come up in his favour but we lost nothing taking that gamble, beyond a few hours lost debating the rights and wrongs of signing an ex-franchiser (and I still don’t think we’ll get over that until we sign someone who left them in acrimonious circumstances and goes on to be a success for us…).

We can look back on a top three league finish with pride, and the knowledge that a fairer promotion/relegation system (such as exists between L1/L2…) would have seen us involved in a scramble for automatic promotion. As it is, it’s the playoffs, a completely different type of challenge. We might be promoted, we might be beaten by the better side, we might perform poorly and look back on what might have been, but the one excuse we no longer have is a lack of depth in the squad – they take us into May carrying hopes and dreams so important to us that to be honest, I’m finding difficult to even visualise right now…

Further WUP articles can be found in the Features Index

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