Making predictions about MK Dons are impossible after pre-season campaign

With the wrap put on pre-season and the new campaign just days away, how will MK Dons fare in League Two? The truth is – it’s impossible to tell.

This is not some ‘keeping my cards close to my chest’ or attempt to avoid a prediction which could come back to haunt me later – lord knows I’ve made plenty of those down the years – but after watching Graham Alexander’s side in pre-season, we’re all none the wiser about where this side sits.

Having watched the games at Wealdstone and Barnet, and the home games against Coventry City and Northampton Town, there have been flashes of what to expect, but plenty of flaws and areas that need improving. That’s what pre-season is all about.

So far, we’re yet to see a fresh MK Dons take to the field, and that has made making any sort of predictions about the forthcoming season more difficult at this early stage. The side have been training several times a day in the last five weeks in a bid to be ready for the gruelling demands of League Two, heading into their pre-season matches fatigued. Saturday’s game with Wrexham will be the first time they go into a game not having trained earlier in the day.

And though their second-half showing against Northampton was a relatively positive one by-and-large, the late goals conceded showed that fatigue plain as day.

There are also psychological hurdles to overcome, with most of the team still coming to terms with last season’s disappointment. That negativity ad on-field nervousness is something Alexander is still battling to overcome.

The new head coach knows he wants more firepower, and that has been glaringly obvious. He knows he wants more physicality, and with the style of play he wants, they will need to be fit and capable of running themselves into the ground for the team. A creative midfield spark too will not go amiss… said every football club.

Realistically, with Dons still very much an unfinished and unknown quantity heading into the new campaign, it may yet take another month before anyone can form a knowledgeable opinion about what to expect from the club this season.

What we do know though is that the time for talk now ends, and they have to put a year’s worth of wrongs right. And that starts on Saturday.