Gilbey is fully focussed on securing automatic promotion

Alex Gilbey did not shy away from his expectation of automatic promotion for MK Dons this season.

Dons moved within touching distance of the top three on Saturday with a dominant 3-0 win over Newport County at Stadium MK, which saw Gilbey fire in his seventh goal of the season.

With 12 games remaining, Mike Williamson's side face many of the sides in and around the promotion mix before the season it out, but Gilbey made no bones about his expectancy.

"We aren't looking down now, we're looking up," he said. "We know where we want to be and where we should be.

"You can never say no to a play-off spot, but I know where I want to be, and that's in the top three. I won't shy away from that, we want that and it's what we're working towards.

"Our next nine games are really tough, teams in and around us. We've got our fate in our hands now, we've got to go out there and do the business. I look at the league table three or four times a day, so I know what we've got coming up. We need to stay consistent, keep performing like that and we'll be alright."

The head coach described Saturday's win as the most complete performance since he took over back in October. And having picked up 10 points from a possible 15 in the last two weeks, Gilbey felt it was a strong turnaround.

He continued: "The lads were outstanding. When we play forwards, not many teams can deal with us, and I think we did that in the first half-an-hour. We've won the game, but we have to go again.

"We were really disappointed on Tuesday night, we deserved more than we got. But we backed it up, got the win today to make it seven points in the week.

"(The last two weeks) has been really tough, we've only had one disappointing performance in that. We just have to keep bouncing on."