Dagenham hold all the aces as Boris Becker sees Wimbledon lose

Former Wimbledon tennis champion Becker was in the crowd, but the local resident saw the Dons defeated by Wayne Burnett's visitors.

Jamie Cureton's goal 10 minutes from time was enough to lift the Daggers out of the relegation zone in Sky Bet League Two with only their second win of the season.

Wimbledon boss Neal Ardley said: "I would have liked Boris to see a winning performance, and it's nice to have people come down and recognise this great club. But I'm more worried about picking them up again after a tricky night."

Ardley refused to blame goalkeeper Ben Wilson who failed to gather Cureton's ball into the box that evaded his grasp and found the net.

Instead, Ardley felt his team had put extra pressure on themselves against a team who have struggled in the league so far this season.

"People expect you to win at home to a team who is struggling. But they are tough nights mentally. They can create anxiety in your team," said Ardley.

"We tried to go out and do our jobs and somehow we managed to lose. I couldn't see us losing that game. When you make changes, you're thinking, 'Can we find a goal, a bit of magic, that anticipation in the box?'.

"We don't have a blame culture here. People don't mean to make mistakes, it happens. We need to take this hurt and this disappointment and make sure we get our performance levels back to what they were before.

"We shouldn't be talking about their one half-chance, we should be talking about having enough quality to put them to the sword, but we didn't do that."

Winning boss Burnett accepted his team had been on the back foot for most of the game, especially in the first half.

"We came with a game plan. We knew the threats Wimbledon would pose us. We didn't pose too much attacking threat to be honest," said Burnett.

"When you're in a position like we are, you're fighting for everything. You put your body on the line. The determination and willingness to put bodies on the line was brilliant from my players as it has been all season.

"Our keeper did two or three great saves in the first half. I can't remember being troubled in the second half. We defended well and were resilient.

"We kept going and battling and showed qualities that will hopefully allow us to push up the league. We haven't played brilliantly but we haven't played badly.

"Wimbledon had better chances, they were the better team, they will feel unfortunate. However, we've had games we've dominated and not won. The position we're in at the moment, we're fighting."