Boss hails battling Wimbledon

Neal Ardley was relieved to finally have something positive to talk about after his AFC Wimbledon team beat Portsmouth 1-0.

Pompey defender Ben Chorley grabbed the only goal of the game, but it came at the wrong end as his wild swing from a Craig Tanner cross ended up going into this own net. Matt Tubbs was denied by Dons goalkeeper Ross Worner just before half-time but it was the home side who looked more likely to grab another goal as Adebayo Akinfenwa headed against the crossbar and Adebayo Azeez missed when clean through. But despite failing to add a second goal there was no dampening manager Ardley's mood. "It doesn't matter how you win, you just need to win," he said. "It's been a tough three weeks, with the injuries to James Shea, David Connelly's retirement, Dave Wingfield gets called back, Callum Kennedy and George Francombe get injured. "And I fancied us to win despite all that. It's typical Wimbledon style, when going gets tough, we respond. "The first kick Ross Worner took the ball sat up in the wind and we didn't realise how strong the wind was against us and at that point I'd take 0-0 at half-time, because I knew they'd keep us pinned in. "It was tough, we were feeding on scraps and we just had to stay in the game. "It was a great response at the end of a tough week. We played really well at Mansfield, deserved three points and came out with none. There was the soft penalty at Exeter, so to end it with three points was perfect. "I'm delighted for Craig Tanner. People have talked about the fact that he hasn't scored and that maybe he's not a League Two player, but he showed he has qualities much higher than League Two." The result saw Wimbledon leapfrog Portsmouth in the table with Pompey boss Andy Awford adamant his side did not deserve to lose, even if they did not do enough to take home all three points. "I'm disappointed with the result, it was a game we thought we could take points from and we came up with nothing," Awford said. "It was another sloppy goal that should be stopped, like the two we conceded the other night. That's the biggest frustration. "Before the game we spoke about being solid, being hard to beat. But when you concede early, it becomes a difficult game. "Neither team created much. Our goalkeeper didn't have much to do and to be fair neither did their keeper and we have to do more with the amount of possession we had. "We're disappointed with the amount of chances we've created. It hasn't really been a problem for us lately, but it just didn't go for us here. I hope it's one we can just write off. "I'm not sure we deserved to lose, but I don't think we've deserved to win either. It all comes down to the early goal. "If it's 0-0, they have to come out more and more each time. But with that goal to hold on to, it happened the other way around."