Michael Duff condemns Wycombe for lack of fight against AFC Wimbledon

Michael Duff accused his Wycombe side of not showing enough fight in the first half of their 2-1 loss to AFC Wimbledon at the Cherry Red Records Stadium.

Omar Bugiel and Steve Seddon scored during an impressive opening from the hosts that sent them into half-time two goals ahead.

However, Wanderers were the better side after the break and they got a goal back when Ewan Henderson tapped in Fred Onyedinma’s cross from close range.

The visitors pushed for an equaliser in the closing stages but without success and Duff was left to criticise their start to the contest.

“You can’t start a game of football like that,” he said.

“We have had to change the shape after 32 minutes.

“We didn’t fight, we didn’t compete, anything we did work on didn’t come out.

“You can’t give goals away like that.

“I have been through it with the players already.

“It is easy to play 2-0 down football, the shackles are off and we changed the shape.

“Actually with the ball we did not change too much and we dominated the rest of the game.”

Indeed, Wanderers thought they had grabbed an 88th-minute leveller through Bradley Fink, but the ball was adjudged to have gone out of play in the build-up.

Duff added: “We won the second half, obviously. The linesman has got involved in a decision he should not be making, but we can’t hide behind that when we could have been 3-0 or 4-0 down in the first 32 minutes.

“They didn’t go under, I said it to them before the game that they had had it all rosy for eight or nine days, today is the day that we learn the most.

“I’m not trying to sound clever, but I learnt quite a lot about them.”

Victory made it three League One wins in a row for the Dons, who were inspired by an impressive display from Omar Bugiel.

The striker opened the scoring after 10 minutes as he headed Steve Seddon’s free-kick into the bottom-right corner and then set up Seddon to make it two, winning the ball in the area before teeing up his team-mate.

Dons boss Johnnie Jackson was equally impressed by his side’s creativity in the first half and willingness to dig in in the second.

“I was very impressed, I thought we showed the two sides to us,” he said.

“The way that we played in the first half is vintage us with the ball.

“What we did to upset the opposition, to score the goals that we did, we missed a few good chances.

“In the second half we had to show the other side to us.

“It was not as pretty on the eye, I suppose, but it certainly showed what we are about.

“We had to dig in, tackle, fight and run – we showed we can do that too.

“That is what you need to do to win games in this league.

“When you are coming up against really good opposition, you are not going to have it all your way.

“The second half was probably never going to look like the first because obviously they are going to respond and try to do something different.

“To see it out, obviously, we had to dig in and suffer at times, but we got it done, and that is the most important thing.”