Zach Robinson left Wimbledon recently because his contract was over, but in the summer of 2023, things might have turned out very differently.
Zach Robinson’s tenure at AFC Wimbledon hasn’t gone as well as he, or many Dons supporters, would have hoped.
Despite being a promising young player who excelled at the academy level and saw his strong play rewarded with his first professional contract in 2020, Plough Lane’s first team never really gave him a chance.
The now-22-year-old left the team this summer on a free transfer, but many who were involved with the team would believe that Wimbledon and Johnnie Jackson ought to have taken advantage of the interest shown in Robinson back in 2023.
Where did interest in Scottish loans come from for Bolton, Reading, and Hull?
A convenient loan spell generated interest in Robinson, as first reported by the South London Press time I had in Scotland.
He was scheduled to depart the team for free in 2022, but Jackson persuaded the then-promising young player to stay longer by offering him a new two-year contract.
At the time, a lot of Dons supporters believed that this was a declaration of purpose from the new manager, since the striker seemed to have faith in him to start playing a bigger part in the 22–23 season.
Instead, Jackson would loan the striker to Dundee FC and then the Scottish Championship, giving him the opportunity to establish himself in anticipation of deploying him in the Wimbledon first team should the loan be successful.
The Englishman’s confidence was much boosted by his brief absence; after making his breakthrough in the latter part of the 21/22 season, he was able to play more minutes for the first team and even start scoring goals on a regular basis. At the age of 20. By the time the loan period ended, he Made 29 appearances in the Scottish second division, scoring 12 goals.
Wimbledon supporters begged for him to be brought back to South West London for the most of his loan period, as the team struggled in front of goal. Most of the supporters wanted to see one of their own given an opportunity to establish himself in the club and become yet another accomplished academy graduate playing senior football at Plough Lane when they returned in the summer of 2022.
Robinson contract expiry shows Wimbledon truly missed chance to cash in
That season where Robinson excelled has long gone now, however, and instead, the Dons are faced with the hard fact that they have just had to release a player who, about a year ago, was attracting major interest and could have easily made them a decent amount of money.
The reason Robinson was sent out on loan to Dundee again rather than being tested in the first team during the previous season may have been the driving force behind the release.
But it does show that the worst thing Jackson and Wimbledon could have done last summer was to hang onto a trading commodity.
Robinson’s reputation has quickly declined this season due to his struggles with injuries, lack of effect at Dundee, and inability to repeat his successful 22–23 campaign.
In a recent interview with South London Press, the striker, who has been with the team since he was 15, was extremely candid about his release.
“The past several years haven’t gone exactly like I would have hoped or expected, but that’s just part of the game,” he remarked.
“It happens that I didn’t have the greatest opportunity. Football is an opinion game, thus people are free to express their thoughts about why they believe the way they do.
“I understand that aspect of the game, so I don’t feel badly about it. Sadly, things haven’t turned out the way I had hoped, but that doesn’t diminish my opinion of Wimbledon in the slightes
It is disheartening to see an academy graduate not given a fair chance when he has shown such tremendous amounts of promise in both academy football and in his few first team outings. However, it has demonstrated that Wimbledon, for all their shrewdness in making excellent money from transfer dealings in recent windows, truly did make a huge error in letting Robinson depart for nothing this summer. The striker has been very open about his release from the club he has been at since he was 15.In a recent conversation, South
