Frustration abounds but Neilson knows he has to remain patient

With just three new players joining his squad so far - Peter Pawlett, Connor McGrandles and Ousseynou Cisse - the Scot will head off on Dons’ Hungarian tour on Sunday evening with barely 22 players, with a considerable number of academy prospects and untested youngsters bulking our his threadbare numbers.

But with a month to go before the season starts on August 5, Neilson admitted he’d sooner have the deals done and dusted.

He said: “It’s a waiting game, and there is a long time before the season starts.

“And even when it does, there will still be players who will come in.

“There’s a frustration in that you want your team to be here when you come in, but there’s a realisation to get the best players, we’ll have to wait. It’s part and parcel of football at the moment.

“We’re aiming high. We could go out and buy a whole squad before pre-season starts but it won’t be the quality we want.

“We want real quality here, but we also want players who really want to be here.

“We’re still aiming really high, trying to get the best players we can get.

“We’re still on a few of our number one targets too, but it’s down to convincing them this is where they want to come because they’re Championship players who want to stay in the Championship but we’re trying to convince them to come to us and progress with MK Dons.”