The MK Dons head coach is confident looking at his squad depth

Paul Warne feels the difference in the quality of his squad depth has gotten significantly narrower this summer compared to last.

Inheriting a squad with a mixture of signings from Graham Alexander, Mike Williamson and Scott Lindsey, Warne’s additions last summer brought in players from League One and the Championship in a bid to get the side out of League Two.

Further signings in January also saw Dons land Premier League talent in the form of Jay Matete, and the experienced heads of Ben Wiles and Curtis Nelson, added to the group ahead of the summer clear-out, which saw nine players depart.

For last Saturday’s game against Norwich, only two of the subs nine were academy products, one of which was keeper Seb Stacey - the only other professional keeper on the club’s books - while everyone else was a senior pro having featured at a higher level.

For Warne, the difference looking at his ‘second string’ now is significant compared to the way he saw it heading into last season.

“Our ‘second string’ so to speak played against our potential ‘first string’ and they were very good, though I’d expect them to be. There is not a massive discrepancy between them,” he said.

“That gap has come down, and a lot of things have helped. Our training pitches are better than they were last year, our training outputs are up considerably, our game time is up a lot from last year as well.

“Whether we’ve signed better athletes, the conditioning is better or we’ve just been fortunate I don’t know, but it does feel like everyone is now more than capable of playing.

“I think most of them, if they don’t start for me, would get into a starting spot somewhere else.

“When we came in last year, we told them things needed to change if we’re going to win most weeks. We brought in a lot of new players and it felt like there was a cultural shift.

“It felt like there were bigger dogs and contributors who had the potential to be bigger dogs. This year, I don’t think there is such an obvious shift. I think that’s a credit to the fact the group has been assembled and there is not as much of that discrepancy.

“All managers want is when you’re playing a tough game, you’re starting to fatigue after 65 minutes, you want to know what’s behind you is unlucky not to be playing, not that they’re on the bench because they’re not as good as what’s in front of you. You want to make changes and not get weaker. I feel like the group now is all of a very similar level.”