Dons boss Ardley: We got lucky in Oxford United win

By Anthony Scales

Dons manager Neal Ardley admitted his side enjoyed a slice of luck during today’s crucially important 2-1 win at home to Oxford, but said his side worked hard for their good fortune.

“I wouldn’t say we deserved to win necessarily,” said Ardley of a win secured by a soft penalty ‘won’ by Harry Forrester and a second-half strike from substitute Jon Meades. “Neither team really did enough to win the game.

“There are games where I felt we deserved to win [this season] and we haven’t, and I felt today a draw would have probably been a fair result but we’ve had those moments in our favour.

“We managed to dig in there. We weren’t fluent, we weren’t brilliant but there were bundles of effort and energy and workrate, and we took our moments when they came.”

Ardley said he hadn’t had a clear view of the penalty awarded Forrester in the first half because “there were too many bodies in the way”.

“I know how angry Derek [Fazackerley, Oxford’s caretaker manager] is with it,” added the Wimbledon manager. “From what I can tell, their guy goes down and Harry Forrester goes down over the top of him. Would I be happy if it was given against me in that circumstance? Possibly not, but I’m not playing the Arsene Wenger card here, I really couldn’t see it.”