Twenty-year-old goalkeeper Joe McDonnell coped admirably when thrown in at the deep end last month, playing away from home against league leaders Shrewsbury.

When it became clear that first-choice James Shea would quickly recover, McDonnell probably was not expecting to feature again this season.

But a more serious injury to Shea means that the young summer signing from Basingstoke will likely be spending the next few weeks between the sticks.

He has conceded just one goal in his two starts thus far - but the abuse he was getting from some of our fans for his kicking problems against York on Saturday is something that I can never quite understand.

I'm not one to claim that a "loyal fan" ought to accept everything the club does without question.

It's our duty as fans to hold the club to account, and that duty is only amplified by our club's unique ownership arrangements.

But while we all have the right to criticise a bad performance, I fail to recognise why you would want to.

By all accounts, McDonnell has performed well since coming into the team: he dominates his penalty area, and has made a number of very decent saves.

Surrey Comet:

Young Don: Joe McDonnell, 20, has performed admirably since standing in for James Shea

Yes, his kicking from hand has been a bit rubbish, but that's hardly the most important aspect of being a goalkeeper, and is something he can easily solve.

His kicking for the U21s suggests the problem on Saturday was with the pressure of first-team football, not a technical issue - and receiving vocal criticism from his own fans during the game is unlikely to help in such a situation.

Being mocked by the opposition fans is one thing, and goes with the territory of being a footballer, but angry complaints and ironic cheers from your own fans must be somewhat harder to take.

Perhaps if we'd refrained from such criticism of his kicking problems, he might have coped better with the cross that led to York's goal?

AFC Wimbledon 2-1 York City - Ardley's reaction

He's certainly not the finished article, but he's exceeded all expectations of a 20-year-old keeper in the past two games, and deserves our support, not our ridicule.

If you want to abuse a young player because one minor part of his game wasn't up to scratch on Saturday, then that's your business.

It just seems bizarre that anyone would want to do the opposition a favour by unnerving our own goalkeeper.

If McDonnell doesn't have a thick skin already, he will do fairly quickly: that's simply part of being a goalkeeper.

It's entirely possible that the criticism he got on Saturday made no difference to his performance whatsoever, and he was just having a bad day.

But in future, perhaps we ought to resist creating a hostile, unforgiving atmosphere for our own players, and direct our vitriol at the other team?

We might just find that the players respond positively to not being abused.

Surrey Comet: