Joe Kinnear got just about the worst pre-Premiership result he could have wanted at Portsmouth over the weekend as two key players hobbled off the pitch. And that could see them out of first team action for weeks.

Michael Hughes ended up with an ankle injury and Peter Fear hurt his shin as Wimbledon lost out on penalties to French side Sochaux in the Portsmouth Centenary Tournament.

"The reason you play these pre-season games is to work on your fitness and the last thing you need is a couple of injuries," said the manager.

And it was little, if any consolation for him that the following day the Dons turned out to beat host side Portsmouth into third place in the competition 3-1, with goals from Mark Kennedy, Neil Ardley and Jason Euell.

At least it was better than the dismal performance against Sochaux when the Dons showed more of last season's classic inability to put the ball in the back of the net.

After Hughes had scored a late equaliser Ben Thatcher, Carl Cort, Marcus Gayle and Duncan Jupp all missed from the spot as the penalty shoot-out was lost.

Kinnear joked: "Three or four of our penalty takers had never taken a penalty before - after that you can see why."

Despite what Dons fans will hope to be no more than a minor setback, Kinnear was being typically upbeat about the Premiership season to come. For the Crazy Gang it kicks off a week tomorrow with Tottenham the visitors.

And Kinnear believes that even without the driving, if sometimes over-impetuous influence of Vinnie Jones, the old Crazy Gang spirit is still around and kicking.

So forget about the gloomy smart alecs who year after year make bets on Wimbledon as certainties for relegation and then watch their hard-earned cash disappear into the ever-more-voluminous bookmakers' satchels.

"We take as much pride in staying in the Premiership every year as most people would from winning it. That's how much we want it," is Kinnear's message to the cynics.

And he was livid about some newspaper reports suggesting that Wimbledon could be "blown out of the Premiership" because the Dons cannot compete with the Monopoly-money wages which top players now demand.

"We can push ourselves in to the top 10 in the league," said a defiant Kinnear. "The bookmakers can say what they want. I am very confident in myself and very confident in the players."

All of this, of course, comes on top of the alleged threat of big spenders like Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal joining a proposed European Super League.

Perhaps the most interesting comments in all of the hype came from United manager Alex Ferguson, who is not at all happy about what he fears may be happening in the Old Trafford boardroom and elsewhere.

Ferguson has been second to none in his belief that clubs should see a sound youth policy as the very root of long-term success. And everyone who knows anything about Wimbledon FC can only stand up and applaud the sometimes dour but highly successful Manchester boss.

He and other managers are now questioning whether fans would really prefer to watch United or Arsenal against Juventus or Barcelona at grossly-inflated admission prices to old fashioned rough-and-tumble English league fare with more home players on show.

In addition to that there is the threat that the big boys could be banned from playing the normal domestic programme and miss out on the oldest and most adrenaline-packed competition of them all, the FA Cup, should they put their hats in the super-league ring.

Sadly this great game of ours is becoming more and more a matter of money in which Wimbledon stand about as much chance as a seaside donkey winning the Derby.

But that does not mean that the Crazy Gang do not live in hope. Of course they do and I expect that a good few fivers are being bet on the Dons staying up in the top flight for another season to come.

I fancy a rather more adventurous investment on the Gang finishing in the top 10. It's certainly not impossible.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.