Micciche's Dons departure must spell the end of the MK Way

'Going down from the Championship was the worst thing to happen to us in the last 10 years, so it is unthinkable to get worse than that," Pete Winkelman said in January when he hired Dan Micciche. Well, it's about to.
Pete Winkelman and Dan Micciche parted ways after just three monthdPete Winkelman and Dan Micciche parted ways after just three monthd
Pete Winkelman and Dan Micciche parted ways after just three monthd

Dons' simply dreadful defeat on Saturday, going down 4-0 to Southend, almost spells relegation for certain to League 2, and the man at the helm has been 'relieved of his duties' after just three months in charge.

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The first five games were defeats and Dons slipped deeper and deeper into the mire. The gap, at one stage, read seven points to safety. Micciche finally picked up his first point - a 0-0 draw away at Rochdale: hardly one to write home about though. Another point away from home came four days later at Fleetwood when a wasteful Dons let slip a lead to tie 1-1. There, in an impassioned speech in front of the fans at the Highbury Stadium Micciche promised Dons would stay up.

Losing to Blackburn, who went top as a result, was probably unfair on Micciche's side who deserved a point from the clash, but what followed drew a line in the sand. A 5-1 thrashing away at Wigan, a wasteful 2-1 defeat at home to Doncaster Rovers and then Saturday's hopeless 4-0 drubbing by Southend mean even winning on Tuesday night away at Bradford might not be enough to save MK Dons from relegation to the bottom tier of the Football League.

Micciche is a nice guy and unfortunately nice guys rarely do well in football. Upset at criticism, eager to please and unwilling to really get at his players after poor performances, his was an approach which simply didn't work with the club in the position it is in. It might have worked had the club been midtable, or had he been the number two to a more experienced man at the helm. Micciche needed time, but time wasn't a commodity he had. His was a short term (albeit half a season long) mission and he has come up very short.

It is a dramatic fall from grace for MK Dons. Not three years ago, the club was locking their sights on the Championship. Bold predictions of 'Premier League in ten years' were banded around and the club was on the up. But reality bit, and it bit hard. Perhaps under-investment, certainly poor recruitment and a catalogue of bad decisions have seen three managers leave in a little under 18 months, with Micciche lasting just three of those. The sad irony of it all is the club's ten year plan has seen them return to where they were this time a decade ago - League 2.

The time of doing things differently has come to an end.