Dons are back in the pack and hunting, says Lewington

Dean Lewington hopes MK Dons can fly under the radar over the Christmas period to set themselves up for a strong second-half of the season.

Dons made it seven games unbeaten under Mike Williamson in League Two on Saturday as they beat Morecambe 3-1 at the Mazuma Stadium, with a brace from Max Dean either side of a Joe Tomlinson strike.

With the team now sitting ninth in the standings, having dropped as low as 19th in October, Lewington hopes a good run into the New Year will put them in good stead to mount a promotion challenge in 2024.

"We've gone from lower than we'd have liked to be in the pack, hunting," said Lewington. "We're only really one result away from being in that play-off mix, an then anything can happen. Over Christmas, we want to keep pushing to give ourselves a blockbuster second-half of the season.

"We're quietly pleased with how things have been going, we know there are loads of improvements we can make. This style takes time, it takes works, training ground hours but we're layering it on slowly. The boys at the top of the table are flying, but we're equally starting to get going, so we'll see what happens."

Speaking about the win over Morecambe on Saturday, he continued: "This is a notoriously difficult ground, the weather conditions are always tricky, and today was no different. In the first-half, we played really well and created a lot of opportunities, maybe not finishing them as we should.

"Morecambe came out second-half and we gave away a sloppy goal, and it allowed them to make life difficult for us for 15, 20 minutes. But the boys hung in there, defended when we needed to and I don't think they had too many chances, and we were able to wrestle back control.

"The second goal settled everyone down and from there on, it wasn't too bad."