Marcus Braddock previews Town's next fixture in Sky Bet League One against AFC Wimbledon
This weekend sees Shrewsbury Town play their second home game in less than a week as AFC Wimbledon visit Montgomery Waters Meadow. The Dons have had a difficult season and currently sit in 24th position with 29 points, four less than 23rd placed Bradford City. They've had a few distractions like cup runs, they've played Premiership West Ham in both the EFL Cup and the F.A. Cup and won 4-2 in the latter. Recent form has seen them win twice in their last five league games with both wins occurring away from home. The two wins have boosted the Dons away form which is now better than their home record, in fact, if you add their four away wins in the cups they've now won ten away games this season. So it's clear that we can't afford to dismiss this as an easy game against the bottom team, we need to be as good as we were against Doncaster at the very least.
Top Scorer (cup goals in brackets)
Joe Pigott 8 (3)
Kwesi Appiah 4 (3)
Mitch Pinnock 3 (1)
Assists
Mitchell Pinnock 3
Andy Barcham 2
Ben Purrington 2
Clean Sheets
Two at home and four away. The Wombles last clean sheet was away at Walsall on February 12th.
Away Goals
Wimbledon have scored most of their away goals in the second half (69%) but that seems to have cost them because the second half is also when they concede most (65%).
Away stats
Wimbledon have earned an average of 1 point per away game, scoring an average of 0.8 goals and conceding 1.4. Their away form is the 18th best in League One with 17 points from 17 games.
Referee
Anthony Backhouse from Cumbria: Games this season: 31. Yellow Cards: 86. Red cards:5.
Assistants: Gary Hilton and Richard Woodward.
Fourth official: Anthony Moore.
Squad News
Dave Edwards and Ollie Norburn are both back from suspension but Anthony Grant is starting a 2 game suspension for 10 yellow cards this season. Lenell John Lewis and Romain Vincalot are both injured.
The Dons may be buoyed by the return of strikers Kwesi Appiah and James Hanson and have no new injury worries.
Summary
This is one of those games that could be considered a potential banana skin but only if you under-estimate Wimbledon. We need to remember that we're going up against a team that beat Premier League West Ham United a few short weeks ago. Having said that we have reason for a little confidence after two excellent wins against two very good teams. The right result this weekend could see us hit the heights of the upper mid-table with 12 games to go until the end of the season. However, we'll have to work extremely hard against a team fighting for survival.