Week at Woughton has been a valuable one for Alexander

Getting back on the training ground after more than two weeks has come not a moment too soon for Graham Alexander and MK Dons.

After playing five matches in 14 days, the players have barely had a day to have a full training session without the distraction of match preparation.

For the first time since the start of the season, Dons have a week without playing on a Tuesday night, and it has afforded the chance to get back to work at Woughton on the Green, and for Alexander to fix some of the issues he has picked up on along the way so far.

“It has been good to be out there again,” he said on Wednesday. “It has been really valuable. This week has given us the chance to get some good working hours in to the players, and that will go right into Friday.

“We know the rigours of English football, that's why we worked them so hard in pre-season. We know it's Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday-Tuesday early on, and you will have limited amounts of training in the first few months.

“You have to have an extreme amount of work in pre-season to get that base in there, something to refer back to in that early season rather than tryin some amazing new things. You just don't have the time.

“We feel the pre-season work holds us in good stead and we can keep touching it up, improving aspects, like the defensive side of things, and attack too. Every minute we get on the training pitch is extremely valuable to us and the players.

“We've got an EFL Trophy game next week, but after that, there's a few weeks without a midweek game so we're pinpointed those weeks to be a really industrious time for us before that madness of midweek games starts again.”