AFC Wimbledon will look at Northampton Town star with real regret: View | OneFootball

Mitch Pinnock's chance out of non-league came from AFC Wimbledon, but seeing how he has excelled at Northampton, Dons fans must feel they missed out

Highlights

AFC Wimbledon have finally built a squad that seemingly has some usefulness in the air. However, they do lack one crucial member, somebody who can put in a brilliant cross.

Rewind the clock a few years though and the club have signed Mitch Pinnock from Dover Athletic, a man who can deliver a brilliant ball into the box and had a wand of a left foot.

For one reason or another though, Pinnock's time at AFC Wimbledon was fairly short-lived, and having now seen the form he has been able to find at another EFL club in the shape of Northampton Town, all those connected to the Dons must feel slightly let down that the talented wideman did not become the player he is now while at the club.

The mismanagement of Mitch Pinnock at AFC Wimbledon

When the club signed the wideman in 2018, there was some excitement as the club had not only managed to beat a League One rival to the signature, but in doing so had just secured one of the National League's shining stars from the previous season.

Prior to joining the Dons, Pinnock had amassed eight goals and 10 assists in 2017/18 and had even earned himself a call-up to the England C squad, where he earned his first cap.

So, upon his unveiling, he was expected to help become part of a Wimbledon squad that would take the club out of the honeymoon period of League One promotion and safety, and toward slowly building up to a potential promotion to the Championship.

However, his major stumbling block came in the form of poor management.

Neal Ardley had become a legendary at the club by the summer of 2018, having guided the Dons to League One two years prior, and then managing to keep them there. However, the 2018/19 season was his fall from grace, and along the way, he took Pinnock's development with him.

Pinnock had come in as a player who could play right across the midfield, but upon being managed by Ardley, he was shoved out onto the left wing. While the now 29-year-old was no stranger to playing on the wing, it was Ardley's other task that did not suit him and stunted his development at the club.

Ardley adopted a heavily defensive style of football in his seasons in League One at the Dons, and in doing so, he quite often wanted his wingers to track back and contribute well defensively. This was not the strongest of talents in Pinnock's repertoire, and when Ardley was replaced by the even more defensive Wally Downes, he really became quite a stunted player.

Under Downes, Pinnock was not always used in the wider positions, being favoured centrally too, but his contributions to the team in terms of goals and assists were still drastically low, as he was so often utilised in a way that did not harness his full attacking potential.

This meant that after his first season, he had only registered four goals and five assists. In the following season, which was the doomed 19/20 curtailed by Covid-19, Pinnock contributed even less, only managing three goals and two assists under both Wally Downes, and then Glyn Hodges, who took over in the manager's seat following Downes' dismissal early on in that season.

Why AFC Wimbledon must regret letting Pinnock move on

While Wimbledon could not simply force Pinnock to stick around at the club, especially in the midst of a global pandemic and with no contract renewal on the table, the fact he has now kicked on at Northampton Town must still leave a slight bitter taste in his mouth.

The Gravesend-born midfielder did not join the Cobblers straight after his release from the Dons, with him first joining Kilmarnock in Scotland before linking up with the side from NN5 in 2021.

However, his form since signing has been brilliant and has shown exactly what the Dons missed out on when they picked Pinnock up from Dover.

His goals and assists from the past three years display that any defensive shackles have been released and Pinnock has been given almost free rein to go and attack defences with his dizzying dribbling and precision left foot finishing.

His form also perhaps dispels the myths that Pinnock's problems at Wimbledon stemmed from a very poor attitude, as it is clear that he just wanted to play his football and leave behind a split career of part-time footballer and ceiling fitter, which he endured while on the non-league circuit.

Johnnie Jackson and his Dons squad that has been built up over the last two summers might not feel that Pinnock is too much of a miss, but to many of the fans that watched on, frustrated by the fact they knew a fantastic player was being held back by negative tactics, it must feel painful knowing that he would be a fantastic part of the squad now, and an especially dangerous one with the likes of Omar Bugiel and Matty Stevens playing too, with both being strikers who thrive off of balls into the box.

Ultimately, there is no telling whether Pinnock would have stuck around if a manager like Jackson was appointed to the club while the former Dover man was there, but if there had been such an appointment to the helm, the Dons could have had the closest thing to a goldmine on their hands, and the output on the pitch to match such a statement.