Smith backs his ex-Newcastle team-mate to lead Dons to promotion

Former MK Dons midfielder Alan Smith hopes his old Newcastle United team-mate Mike Williamson can help the club return to League One this season.

The ex-Leeds and Manchester United man played alongside the Dons head coach 29 times at St James’ Park, helping the Magpies to promotion from the Championship in 2010, back into the Premier League.

Smith left for Milton Keynes in 2012 where he spent the next two and a half years, and still keeps a keen eye out for the club’s results.

Although Dons’ automatic promotion chances were dealt a killer blow on Saturday when they were beaten by top-three rivals Mansfield, Smith hopes Williamson’s impact on his old club will come good, but admitted there are a lot of big clubs in the lower leagues, and it has made for much more competitive divisions nowadays.

Smith, speaking to Krytpo Casinos, the home of Bitcoin Casinos, said: “One of my old teammates Willo, Mike Williamson, is the manager there now and he has done a good job there since he went in.

“It’s a good club, and they have all the characteristics and the structure to be in a higher league. But there’s also a lot of other clubs that have the same now, and those leagues have become very competitive and more difficult for someone to say we will bankroll a League Two team and just get through the leagues, and we’ve seen that with Salford, that it’s not as easy as people think it is.

“Those leagues are tough and hard to get out of, they’re lads that fight for everything they can, as every player is fighting for next year’s contract, so what’s on the line for those lads is massive as well. “I feel like MK Dons is a good club, and I really enjoyed my time there. A very interesting club in the way that it came about and being in no man’s land.

“They’ve got a new base of fans now, but originally it was probably fans of other clubs that lived in Milton Keynes – my uncle lives there and is a Leeds fan and if Leeds aren’t playing he will go and watch them.

“That’s what the remit was, can we get those commuters to come and watch our team when they can’t watch their own team.”