Neal Ardley admitted he got his tactics wrong in the first half, but played tinker man at half-time to get AFC Wimbledon all three points from a 3-1 win over Mansfield Town.
The Dons were a goal behind at half time after Matt Green put the Stags ahead from close range.
However, after replacing Adebayo Akinfenwa with Callum Kennedy at the break, and changing formation, Ardley’s men fought back through goals from Lyle Taylor, Jon Meades and Adebayo Azeez.
The victory, the Dons third in a row, lifts them to within a point of the League Two play-offs ahead of this weekend’s trip to Notts County.
Ardley said: “I got it wrong at the start. I picked the team on the back of how well they had been training.
“I am very big on attention to detail, and I want my players to know that if they train well, they have a chance of playing.
“So I went brave. We lost George [Francomb] and Jake [Reeves] was already out, so we didn’t have a central midfield and I did not want to upset the back four and take Meades out and put him in the middle.
“So I tried to go brave with three forwards, and we were disjointed in the first half and rightly so we came in behind.”
He added: “I took the brave decision of making a substitution, it was nothing against Adebayo, I just had a feeling that Tom [Elliott] would cause them problems in the second half.
“And credit to the boys, they had a lot to do at 1-0 down, but the attitude they've shown over the past four of five games has been great and they were too strong for them.”
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