The manager, who had guided his side to a comfortable two-nil half-time lead, insisted that the players must now be brave as they head to Glanford Park in desperate need of three points as the battle for survival looks to be heading towards a nail-biting conclusion.
Dean, who was speaking via the Express & Star, said; "We have got to be brave. We have got to get our heads up because we have got a massive game next week against Scunthorpe. We have got to go there and get something. We have got to give an account of ourselves.
"You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know we had to come out for the second half against Wimbledon and keep things tight. We tried to ram the message home at half-time but we have gone out there and not started right.
"That is what we will look at and that is probably the reason why I’m here, why somebody has lost their job – because we were naïve in the second-half. It was a massive result and a massive blow. It just was not good enough."
"We have got to be brave. We have got to get our heads up because we have got a massive game next week against Scunthorpe. We have got to go there and get something. We have got to give an account of ourselves."
The manager then went on to admit that Saturday's defeat to the Dons was particularly hard to take as the Saddlers were in a comfortable position as the match reached half-time, and looked to be heading closer to securing League One survival, he continued; "We had picked up four points ahead of Wimbledon and we knew going into the game that if we picked up three points, it would have been a good week. We would have picked up seven points and we would have kept Wimbledon completely at arm’s distance.
"We would possibly even have been safe looking at how the other results have gone but it’s not happened. So the lads have to brave this week, they need to take the blow, which it is, and they have to come back in, get their heads up and be men about it."