Minor tweaks have helped Dons turn their home form around
Defender Marvin Ekpiteta spoke after MK Dons’ 2-1 win over Fleetwood Town
A few tweaks in the way MK Dons have been approaching home games has helped them find their way again at Stadium MK.
Saturday’s 2-1 win over Fleetwood Town was their first over the Cod Army since 2021, but was also the fourth league win in a row at MK1, having struggled at the beginning of the season to get anything on home soil.
Now with the eighth best record in the league at home, having picked up 16 points from 27 available to them, Dons now sit third in the standings all thanks to a change which defender Marvin Ekpiteta believes has hugely helped them turn things around.
“Things have turned around at home, that’s our fourth win here on the bounce now so it’s really good compared to how it was earlier. Hopefully that continues now,” he said.
“We just had to believe we were good enough. We knew we could turn things around with the flick of a switch, and I think we have done, now. We worked on a few things in training, playing a slightly different style which has helped us and I think that’s shown in the performances.
“Away form has kept us at the top end of the table, and now we’ve sorted the home form, we’ve kicked on.”
Despite conceding a Ched Evans goal with 19 minutes to go, Dons’ defence kept the visitors quiet for the most part at Stadium MK, limiting them to just four on-target efforts all afternoon.
While Fleetwood manager Pete Wild felt his side were in ‘complete control’ during the second-half, Ekpiteta said it was a relatively routine game for the Dons defence.
He said: “During the game, I think we had a lot of control, especially in the first-half. We should have scored a lot more goals, but Fleetwood defended really well with a lot of last-minute blocks. We gave away a sloppy goal, we deserved a clean-sheet but it was an all-round good performance. And we still saw the game out which was good. We need to keep seeing games out the way we did today.
“(Evans) has had a good career, and if you give him half-a-yard, he’ll punish you if you give him those opportunities.
“I don’t think Craig had a save to make, maybe a half-save which went straight to his hands. We had a lot of good chances at the end ourselves too, so it was good to seeing the game out that way.”