AFC Wimbledon should take Chelsea punt in final days of the transfer window | OneFootball

With the left side of defence still needing cover, Johnnie Jackson should take a punt on the yet unproven Ishe Samuels Smith

As the transfer window enters its final stages, Johnnie Jackson's AFC Wimbledon squad is starting to take shape.

Having brought in only two signings until the end of the season in the shapes of Sam Hutchinson and Marcus Browne so far, the other additions have been the welcoming back of players injured during the Dons' mini-crisis at the end of November.

But with the left side of defence being the only part of the team that still feels a little bit light, Jackson could make a shrewd, but risky, move to bring in a young Chelsea academy starlet on loan in the form of Ishe Samuels-Smith.

Ishe Samuels-Smith would bolster Johnnie Jackson's defence

While the Dons do currently have two good options down the left side of defence in the form of James Tilley and James Furlong, looking more centrally, there is not someone who can deputise for Ryan Johnson when he is either forced out of the team due to injury or is rotated out to conserve fitness.

Therefore, bringing in Samuels-Smith would be a clever move to make as not only does he have the ability to play at full-back and provide great cover for Tilley and competition for Furlong, but he can also step in and fill in for Johnson.

While he does not have the height and stature of Johnson, who stands at a 6ft 2in and is a bruiser of a centre-half, Samuels-Smith has the playmaking abilities that Johnson has developed in his time under Jackson at Wimbledon.

Which, alongside the fact he is currently on the books at Chelsea, who are more likely to send their youngsters to clubs in and around the local area, is certainly an attractive factor for Jackson and his transfer team.

Adding to those factors is that Samuels-Smith is one of England's hottest youth prodigies in defence, with the 18-year-old having been labelled that for a lot of his youth.

In 2022, he was named as the best player in his age group when at previous club Everton by the Guardian, and since then he has commanded a reported £4m transfer fee to move to Chelsea, as well as gained 35 youth international caps for England, from U16 through to U19 last year.

And given Wimbledon's pedigree in terms of development in recent years, with both their own academy stars and a few young loanees, the prospect of joining the Dons does seem a promising prospect for both Samuels-Smith himself and Chelsea, who will want their yet unproven young prospect to develop in the best possible environment.

AFC Wimbledon would be taking a risk with Ishe Samuels-Smith

While the positives around signing Samuels-Smith have been laid out above, there is the glaringly obvious negative, which is the fact that if the Dons were to pick up the young defender, they would be his first step into professional football.

And while that should not be too much of a worry, the fact is that Wimbledon are in a tight fight for promotion in League Two at the moment, and relying on a youngster to help provide cover in two positions may not be the best thing to do.

Talent is something that the young defender has in abundance, but on the other side of things, experience is what he is really lacking at the moment, and given how shaky Wimbledon have been in the second halves of previous seasons, most would perhaps prefer a more experienced head within the team, rather than a player who has spent the last few years playing academy football.

Taking a look back just 12 months ago, and with Wimbledon an injury crisis in defence, the veteran head of Lee Brown stepped in at left-sided centre-back and made that position his own, with some commanding performances alongside the well-travelled John-Joe O'Toole and young loanee Kofi Balmer.

Now, if the Dons had not had the likes of Brown to fall back on in that position, the season may have ended a little differently, with the Dons likely to have faded from the play-off picture much earlier than they did last season with a younger, less robust and experienced defence.

So, if Jackson wants to get the absolute best out of this season, signing cover for his defensive unit in the shape of Samuels-Smith would certainly be clever but it is risk as it could be costly should the Chelsea youngster prove he is not ready for the step up.