Lyle Taylor’s penalty winner for AFC Wimbledon at Wycombe on Saturday owed more than a little to boss Neal Ardley.
Leading scorer Taylor kept his cool amid delays and gamesmanship from home keeper Ryan Allsop to send him the wrong way from the spot and re-ignite the Wombles’ play-off hopes.
In the wake of the 2-1 win, Ardley revealed he’d had a word in the ear of the former Bournemouth striker last week while he was practising the art on the training pitch, sharing secrets of his success with spot-kicks for both Dons and Watford in his own playing days.
“We have talked about it because Lyle was practising some the other day,” said Ardley.
“I spoke about how I used to take them and the process I would go through and he told me afterwards ‘I used your process today.’
“He practices penalties at lot and he is technically gifted enough to deal with them.”
The summer signing from Scunthorpe made a slow start to life at Kingsmeadow, not helped by a red card at Mansfield, meaning his first league goal did not arrive till early October.
However, 15 more have followed since and Taylor may hold the key to Dons’ bid for an end of season playoff spot.
They now sit ninth, just two points off the top seven berth required ahead of Saturday’s trip to fellow promotion hopefuls Plymouth on Saturday.
