Tisdale Delighted with 2-0 Win Over AFC Wimbledon

Exeter City’s 3rd league game of the season took place on Saturday at St James Park. The opponents being AFC Wimbledon, and the Grecians had been given permission to play in the 3rd kit of yellow shirts, blue shorts and blue and white hooped socks for the Club’s Brazil Day.

Team line up were:-

Exeter City		AFC Wimbledon
01 Krysiak		01 Warner
03 Woodman		02 Fuller
05 Baldwin		03 Kennedy
06 Coles		05 Frampton
16 Dawson		06 Bennett
08 Oakley		04 Sweeney
11 Davies		11 L Moore
29 Grimes		12 Pell
32 Wheeler		21 Porter
19 O’Flynn		09 Smith
25 Parkin		10 Midson
Subs:		Subs:
30 Pym		22 Brown
07 Sercombe		07 Francomb
14 Doherty		15 Fenlon
21 Gosling		24 Weston
22 Keohane		08 S Moore
10 Gow		19 Arthur
18 Reid		18 Sheringham

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Matt Grimes was making his league debut, appearing in the absence of Liam Sercombe, and Matt Oakley started ahead of the injured Scot Bennett. Wimbledon named an unchanged side.

It was the Grecians that started the better. And it only took 11 minutes for John O’Flynn to get on the score sheet, with O’Flynn picking up a loose ball on the left and sending in a string ball that took a deflection to beat Ross Warner. Exeter dominated the first half, and it was on 36 minutes when John O’Flynn with the merest of touches scored from an excellent David Wheeler cross.

The second half Exeter City sat back but Wimbledon had no way through. A consolation goal for the Dons, was denied by a Pat Baldwin clearance off the line in the last minute.

So, excellent performance from Matt Grimes on his debut, and a deserved sponsors man of the match award to David Wheeler.

Match Stats:-

Exeter Subs: Sercombe on for O’Flynn 59 mins, Doherty on for Sercombe 67 minutes, Gow on Wheeler on 85 mins.
Wimbledon Subs: Weston replaced Bennett 39 mins, Francomb replaced Porter on 46 mins, Sheringham replaced Midson on 59 mins.

Discipline: Yellow cards for Coles and Doherty (Exeter) and yellow cards for Luke Moore and Pell (Wimbledon).

	ECFC	AFCW
Shots	15	17
On target	5	4
Corners	15	9
Fouls	5	7

Attendance 3881 of which 488 were Wimbledon fans.

Quotes:-

Paul Tisdale

The players really started the game fantastically well. There was a lot of positivity, creativity and goal threat and we thoroughly deserved our two-goal lead.

We maybe could have got more, but 2-0 is good enough. We tried our best not to keep a clean sheet at the end by being a bit sloppy, but Artur (Krysiak) made some good saves. It was a really good performance.

We had a really bad week going into the game in terms of injuries and not knowing what the team was and I have to say that the midfield partnership of Matt Oakley and Matt Grimes was superb for a first effort together.  Matt Grimes played like someone who’s played for years and he had a proper player in Matt Oakley alongside him.

Those two set it off.  They were so composed and had so much control over the centre of the field, that it enabled us to keep our wide players wide and feed David Wheeler and keep the two strikers close together.  It was a really proper performance

Wimbledon boss Neil Ardley:-

I am really disappointed. I am not going to defend the boys, if we were unlucky to lose I would say so. Exeter were much the better team throughout the game and I have said to the players that one thing that is high on the list of every performance is the basics. The energy, the pace, the desire, one-to-one battles, we need to master them and we didn’t turn up with any of it.

“The first half in particular we were so off the pace and they were twice as quick as us. They played with high energy and we didn’t, they anticipated second balls we didn’t, they did the rubbish side of their game and we didn’t. When you do that you lose in this league, you can’t win games. I don’t care how good a group of players we think we have got, we can’t win games without doing the basics

Match report on the Official Site – http://www.exetercityfc.co.uk/fixtures-results/match-report/?pageView=full#anchored

Cheggers Pics – http://www.exetercityfc.co.uk/news/article/gallery-exeter-city-2-afc-wimbledon-0-1000521.aspx

Paul Tisdale on Matt Grimes – http://www.exetercityfc.co.uk/news/article/tis-grimes-impressing-me-all-the-time-1000403.aspx