Familiar feel to the season for Gilbey as he chases fourth promotion
MK Dons captain Alex Gilbey spoke before Saturday’s crunch game with Bromley
A fourth career promotion is on the cards for Alex Gilbey, and this season’s feel is a familiar one for the MK Dons captain.
Having helped Newport County to promotion from the National League in 2013, he was then a part of Dons’ rise to League One in 2019 under Paul Tisdale, before then adding a second League Two promotion to his CV with Stevenage in 2023.
It could be another one on the books for Gilbey this season too, with Dons sitting second with four games to go and their promotion fate in their own hands, despite their recent dip in form which has seen them go four games without a win.
Plenty familiar with what it takes to help a side go up, the 31-year-old said this Saturday’s match against league leaders Bromley is the sort of game to whet the appetite for a final push in the remaining weeks of the season.
“It feels similar (to other promotions),” he said. “Promotion seasons are never straightforward. They’re always up and down, and it’s about putting your best foot forward.
“It has been tough, we were on such a good run and then to have the results we’ve had in the last two or three weeks. Obviously we feel frustrated but I’ve been around promotion runs long enough to know these things happen.
“We’ve had a little bit of a blip, it’s come at a hard time in the season, but we've got a big game on Saturday.”
Discussing the game against the Ravens, Gilbey said: “These are the types of games you want to play in as a kid, no-one wants to play in dead rubbers where you get nothing out of it. These are proper games of football. We know what we need to do, we need to win and get the three points. If we do that, we’ll be looking pretty.
“They’re top of the league, they’ve been the best side in the league this season. We know what we’ve got to do - it’s as simple as winning a game of football. We’ll do everything we can to do that.
“We know they’re a big, physical side, we know how they want to play and we know what they’ll throw at us.”