Sick as a Parrett! Bennetts, Sterling and Dinzeyi reflect on late Wimbledon loss

While it was one of our former Academy graduates in Dean Parrett who stole the win and the headlines for AFC Wimbledon, our present-day youngsters had plenty to consider after Tuesday’s seven-goal thriller in the Checkatrade Trophy.

Pitted against an experienced League One side, our Under-21s more than held their own and scored three well-worked goals through Shilow Tracey, Samuel Shashoua and Kazaiah Sterling, only to concede an equaliser within moments each time.

Keanan Bennetts again dropped back from his usual attacking midfield berth to put on an impressive display at left-back, setting up two goals, but it was Parrett, who played four first team games for us in Europe between 2009 and 2011, who secured a 4-3 victory for the Dons in Group F with a 92nd-minute header.

Keanan, striker Kazaiah and central defender Jon Dinzeyi all spoke of their disappointment at the manner of the goals conceded after the game. Here’s what they said…

Keanan Bennetts

Thoughts on the game
“You saw the contrasting styles of the two teams, we scored three very well-worked goals and then conceded on the basics. On the set pieces we knew what to expect but we still weren’t good enough so that’s the biggest disappointment for us. Set pieces are part of football so it’s important for us as young players to grasp how important they are. We put in a bit of extra work on that but we’ve got to do it in the games because it wasn’t good enough today.”

On his two assists from left-back
“The assists were good. Going forward I always find it easier. Defensively I think I should have done better today but with the transition of positons, wherever the manager puts me I need to play to the best of my ability. Whenever I’m playing at left-back I think I need to defend better but obviously attacking-wise I’m always confident on the ball so I expect that of myself. In football you’ve got to be adaptable, so being able to play in different positions only benefits you. It’s a way to develop further.”

On the goals we scored
“We’ve got great attacking players here, the competition for places is so tough. There were no surprises there for me when our strikers do it in training every day, scoring those types of goals.”

Kazaiah Sterling

On the pattern of the game
“I thought we kept fighting towards the end, we just needed to manage the game better at specific points, especially after we scored. That was the main thing that let us down – when we’ve just scored we’ve got to try to take control of the game, push the play up, try to play in their half for a bit and keep them away from our goal. I think we let them take the momentum back from us after our goals each time. They were quite direct so they thrived off set-pieces quite a lot.”

On our attacking play
“Keanan was really good down the left side and I thought we worked the play quite well. Especially down the left side with Keanan bombing on – that’s his game because he’s naturally a winger so I think he used that very effectively. We did get into good areas quite a lot but it’s just working on the finish. We’ve all been working hard on our finishing in training.”

Jon Dinzeyi

On defending against a League One side as a 17-year-old
“It was quite different to what I’ve been used to because they were a lot bigger, stronger, quicker and older than me so I just had to concentrate and always be first to the ball. With Christian Maghoma next to me as well, with his experience, him helping and talking me through the game really helped me. Tonight was quite tough though. The strikers I was playing against made good movements in behind and in the box they would always try to run off you, so it was a tough one.”

On the goals conceded
“Overall I thought we played well, but we conceded three goals from set-plays. We’ve been working on set-plays in training so for us it’s very disappointing to concede those goals. We’ve been watching Wimbledon so we knew how they were going to play and we knew they would be good at set-plays, so as a group we could have defended a lot better in those situations.”