In last week's column, I mentioned how the upcoming busy schedule would test whether Ardley's gamble (using a small but high-quality squad) would pay off.

Perhaps I should have avoided tempting fate: in the following two days, we lost Will Nightingale and Mark Phillips to injury and suspension respectively, leaving us with just one senior centre-back.

Rather than throw 17-year-old Ryan Sweeney in at the deep end, we decided to bring in Dave Winfield - an old-fashioned, physically imposing centre-back - on loan from York City.

This is not the first time in the last few years that we've relied on emergency loans to get us out of a sticky situation.

The likes of Yado Mambo, Paul McCallum and Jake Goodman, among others, were all brought in to fill a gap when we were caught short.

However, this is the last season in which such loans, outside of the transfer windows, will be allowed.

This will force teams to form a squad large enough to cope with such crises, and will likely only serve to further the gap between the rich and poor.

Wimbledon Times:

Caught short: Jake Goodman helped fill a gap... until he got injured

There are sides who will be hit even harder than us, as the recent reform to youth academy funding means many lower-league clubs have given up entirely on youth development.

If we hadn't been able to bring Winfield in, we would at least have been able to play two centre-backs on Saturday, even if one of them was a teenage debutant.

You could argue that this change to the system will favour sides with a well-organised management team, and that certainly ought to suit us: but as we've seen in the last few weeks, a bit of bad fortune (and foolishness, in the case of Phillips) can see even well-prepared managers caught out.

This time out, we've got away with it. Winfield may not be much of a world-beater, but he should be able to get the job done as a stop-gap. In years to come, such short-term fixes may not be available.

It makes our continued development of youth players even more of a priority, and will enhance the risk associated with signing injury-prone players like Andy Frampton or Will Nightingale.

So - be grateful that on this occasion we could get an emergency loan in. If we face a similar situation in future years, the solution may not be quite so clear-cut...