Darius Charles hailed a rare clean sheet in the wake of AFC Wimbledon’s 2-0 win over Gillingham on Saturday.
Dons’ only previous League One shut-out came at Northampton last month, but after the Gills gifted their hosts goals via a stray back-pass and a needless penalty, Charles and co didn’t so much close the door on their Kent visitors as slam it in their face.
Former Brentford and Stevenage centre-back Charles admits such a disciplined defensive showing was overdue.
“The clean sheet is pleasing,” he said.
“We will always score goals because of the players we’ve got going forward, but we have conceded more goals than we would like.
“We played at such an intensity that even when we didn’t have the lion’s share of the ball we worked hard filling in spaces, getting out to the ball and really in the second half we limited them to very little.”
Three points came at the end of a week, which had seen four more slip away when in winning positions against fellow strugglers Shrewsbury and Coventry.
Charles admitted the slip-ups were hammered by boss Neal Ardley at half-time against Gillingham that brought a safety-first approach after the break.
“The gaffer said to remember the Shrewsbury game where we were 1-0 up and comfortable coming in at half-time, then made a slow start to the second half, conceded a goal and could not quite get the second one to win,” Charles added
“So we came out, put the ball in good areas, played at a high tempo and today we just had too much for them really.”
