Houghton privileged to have the extra attention in Dons' midfield

His job may have gone under the radar last season, but Jordan Houghton is getting a lot more attention from opposing teams this season.

Picking up the ball just in front of the defence to begin Dons' moves, Houghton has been a key-man during Russell Martin's tenure. But as more teams set up to smother Dons' style of play, Houghton has been attracting more attention in the form of man-markers.

Manager Russell Martin said: "We take Jordan for granted as teams are marking him out the game as they want to stop us and to beat us," and for Houghton himself, he sees the attention from the opposition as a sign that he's doing the right things.

"It’s difficult," he said. "To have that pressure is a privilege, when you’ve got teams adapting their teams to nullify our threats. The pressure is a privilege, if we weren’t doing something right then most teams wouldn’t be changing. I take that as a positive.

"I want to get the ball in areas that I can distance, it’s been a lot of play with someone behind me where I’ve got to play backwards instead of playing penetrative balls. It’s something I’ve acknowledged so I’ve been looking at the games and what I can do to get on the ball more.

"Sometimes it’s a case of sacrificing my position to allow someone else to get on the ball and let them do their damage. We’ve got multiple players that can do dangerous things and we need to be able to adapt to that. It’s something I’ve been looking at with Luke and Russ and we want to be able to hurt teams in different ways. I want to dominate more than I have been."