Brown: Reading, Portsmouth, Preston and West Ham fixtures made pre-season unbalanced

by Tom Moore Saturday, August 11, 2012
11:16 AM

The Dons boss has learnt lessons from a difficult pre-season campaign

AFC Wimbledon manager Terry Brown has admitted that he didn’t get the balance of the club’s pre-season campaign right.

The Dons beat Maidenhead and Bognor Regis but lost to Preston, Reading, Portsmouth and a West Ham XI and the manager hinted that there’d be a better mix next season.

“Pre-season was very slow results wise,” Brown told London24.

“I’ve been disappointed with some of the performances on the playing front.

“We’ve had a really stiff collection of fixtures having played Preston, Reading, Portsmouth and as West Ham XI (plus Freddie Piquionne).

“In hindsight I didn’t quite get the balance right as you need to be winning some games and the chances of winning them was slight.

Despite these defeats, the Dons boss was encouraged by certain things.

“I was really pleased with the performance against Portsmouth, who’d beaten Bolton 3-0 on the Saturday,” he added.

“To record a 2-0 deficit wasn’t the end of the world.

“We should have scored three or four goals but I hope I don’t have to use the words should have again.”

Having signed Mikhail Jaimez-Ruiz, the Dons will not be making any other moves in the transfer market, unless there are injuries.

“That’s us done,” Brown explained. “We’ve tied up a second goalkeeper.

“That’s us done and dusted unless we get injuries.”