'Brutal' - Ex-Sunderland coach Mike Dodds taught 'harsh lesson' after latest Wycombe Wanderers setback

Former Sunderland assistant coach Mike Dodds has admitted that he and his Wycombe Wanderers side were taught a “harsh lesson” after their League One promotion push suffered a setback on Saturday afternoon.

The Chairboys were beaten 1-0 by fellow high-flyers Wrexham, and subsequently fell out of the automatic promotion places as a result. Despite having more possession, more shots, and more shots on target, Wycombe were ultimately undone by a 78th minute strike from Sam Smith.

That costly scoreline means that Dodds has now won just one of his past five league outings, with Wanderers having also lost against league leaders Birmingham City during that underwhelming run too.

And in the aftermath of Saturday’s disappointment, Dodds admitted that his side were undergoing a steep learning curve in their bid to secure a spot in next season’s Championship.

He said: “The most disappointing thing is that these games, Birmingham and Wrexham, we said they would be decided by moments and after they cleared the ball off the line, they scored the winner one minute and 20 seconds later.

“That’s how brutal it can be at the top and it’s a harsh lesson for us. But, I was pleased with out-of-the-possession stuff as we nullified them but they were also well organised out of possession. Overall, it was two teams trying to cancel each other out and sadly for us, they got that moment and we didn’t.”

Dodds continued: “We just need to put this to bed as we still have 30 points to try and get this season and we’ll be ready to go again on Tuesday night at Rotherham. It is what it is but we have got to dust ourselves down and not feel sorry for ourselves.”

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Despite their patchy form of late, former Wycombe defender Joe Jacobson has insisted that Dodds is proving to be a popular appointment in the dressing room at Adams Park. Speaking on Sky Sports recently, the pundit said: “People were waiting, with the managerial change that happened when Matt Bloomfield went to Luton, they were waiting for Wycombe to fall off a little bit… But Dodds has come in and steadied the ship again after the interim spell of Sam Grace, and you can tell the players really like him.

“From speaking to the players like I do, one thing he did when he first came in is gather the experienced players in the dressing room and tell them, ‘I’m on your side, we can achieve something special here.’ And they’ll now be very confident they can do that with the squad they’ve got.”

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