"It's a huge success": Sweeting on MK Dons' January transfer window business

The business MK Dons were able to complete in the January transfer window should be seen, on the surface at least, as a success according to sporting director Liam Sweeting.

The club brought in eight players, while seeing 14 depart during the course of the month, reducing the size of Scott Lindsey’s playing squad while giving him a new arsenal of talent to choose from.

The headline signings will certainly be seen as midfielder Dan Crowley and striker Danilo Orsi, but the captures of two centre-backs, a combative midfielder in Jay Williams and the addition of width in the form of Travis Patterson on loan from Aston Villa have ticked boxes Sweeting and the recruitment team went into the window with.

“If I judge the window on our pre-window objectives, it's a huge success,” Sweeting told the Citizen. “We wanted to fill that right-sided number 10 role, and we got Dan Crowley who was a long-term target and took a lot of work and patience. You don't see deals like this very often - two big clubs in the same division, competing for the same end goal doing a big transfer. It was great to come out on the right side of that deal to sign Dan.

“But we went and got Tommi O’Reilly (on loan from Villa) as well, someone we think can add ball-carrying and creativity, who needed an opportunity in the right style.

“Our second objective was to sign a disruptive, defensively responsible, athletic midfield player, and Jay Williams was a clear standout. We also had the bonus of Scott being able to rubber-stamp that one.

“We had a fair amount of work to do on the wing-back role, adding someone​ with athleticism and ball-carrying ability, but also competition for places.

“As the window developed, things and priorities changed. We sped up two roles we would have done in the summer, with two centre backs. We needed leadership, so we got Nathan Thompson but also we were aware of a box dominance issue, especially in away games, so the opportunity to sign Jack (Sanders), who is someone we'd watched for months, we escalated it to now.

“And then in the final few days of the window, the striker and goalkeeper situation came up as well.”

The departures were a necessary venture too, with three cancelled contracts of Matt Dennis, Tom Carroll and Joe Pritchard allowing them to find pastures new in the free agency market.

Dons’ vast squad was something Lindsey has often referenced, especially his eagerness to bring it down to make it more manageable.

Sweeting said he felt the timing Fahad Al Ghanim’s takeover at the club - coming with only two weeks of the summer window still remaining - meant they carried bloated playing numbers through the first-half of the campaign, but it needed to be cut back when the window reopened again.

He said: “Due to the takeover in the summer, and the ability to sign more players towards the end of that window, it led to a bloated squad. In the first-half of the season, that was fine because we had a lot of injuries, but then all of a sudden everyone was fit, and we didn't have the cups or trophy games.

“So for the second-half, we had to reduce the squad to a manageable position.”