Christmas period a chance to build another winning run - Wearne

Stephen Wearneplaceholder image
Stephen Wearne | Jane Russell
The MK Dons attacker sets his sights on starting a new streak next week

While MK Dons six-game winning streak came to an end on Saturday with the 1-0 defeat to Gillingham, Stephen Wearne has eyes on another run over the festive period.

With four games in quick succession over the Christmas period, taking on Newport (away, Dec 21), Notts County (home, Boxing Day), Crewe Alexandra (home, Dec 29) and Chesterfield (away, New Year’s Day), Dons could swiftly find themselves back on winning terms again, after postponements and Saturday’s loss dropped them out of the top seven in the division.

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“It's the end of the run, but we have to put another one together now,” said Wearne after Saturday’s loss. “It's not the end of the world, we want to win every game.

“As soon as you win two or three on the bounce, things look positive again. It's important not to get too down, we've lost games before and bounced back so that's what we'll be looking to do.”

The loss, which looked unlikely in the first-half especially as Dons dominated with more than 75 per cent possession, was a frustrating one for the home dressing room, Wearne continued, after he felt Gillingham perfectly executed their game plan to stifle the hosts.

He said: “We're really disappointed, it's just one of those frustrating games. They did a job on us, and we've got to look at it, look at there we can improve, brush ourselves off and go again next week.

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“It's a game we really should have won, we were the better team. Gillingham came with a game plan and did what they wanted to do. Teams will come here and play for 0-0s, play for 1-0s, and we even said it at half-time, we had to get the first goal. We knew if they scored they would park the bus and were really difficult to break down.

“There is lots we can improve on: if we put our chances away, we'd win the game comfortably. We have to be more ruthless if we want to be up there at the end of the season, have to take our chances and punish teams.”

The 23-year-old also leapt to the defence of keeper Tom McGill, whose error, allowing Robbie McKenzie’s strike through his legs, proved to be costly in conceding the only goal of the game.

Wearne added: “Everyone makes mistakes, loads of us made them out there. It's obviously more difficult as a keeper because the ball usually ends up in the back of the net. There are not hard feelings towards Tom at all, he kept us in a lot of games this season. It just is what it is.”

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