Too soft, predictable and easy to beat - the worrying problems facing MK Dons

Despite the significant personnel overhaul during the course of the summer, one thing has remained at MK Dons - their soft underbelly.

The phrase ‘they don’t like it up em’ may not have been initially aimed at a League Two football side, but it was ringing loudly in supporters’ ears after Saturday’s humiliating defeat to AFC Wimbledon.

It was something which was their undoing on so many occasions last season too. Defeats away at Doncaster Rovers, Bradford City, Grimsby Town, Stockport County, and Crawley Town, not to mention at Plough Lane, all came as a result of simply strong-arming Mike Williamson’s side out of the way. Dons frankly did not have much of an answer for that approach last season, and it appears, they don’t this season either.

“It's not a club thing, it's more than that,” said captain Alex Gilbey after the 3-0 thumping at the hands of their rivals on Saturday. “You have to earn the right. When it's right, it's very good but we're having too many days when it's like 'here we go again' - something has to change.”

It took Dons an hour to get their feet properly under the table against AFC Wimbledon. Nowhere near the pace of the game, they only tentatively looked capable of drawing level after fall behind. Their slow and patient style of play was not working, but there was no deviating from the plan - the plan which got so publicly exposed by Roy Keane a couple of weeks ago after a similarly lacklustre defeat at Salford.

Gilbey continued: “We can't just roll up and say 'let's stroke it about, shall we?' Come on. We need to stand up and be counted. We can't just show up to games thinking we'll get it all our own way and have all the time in the world to play. This is League Two football, this isn't the Premier League. We've got to earn the right, we've got to want to fight for each other.

“We want to do it at home, stroke it about and look alright but we go away from home and collapse again. Away form has been terrible. It's just so soft away from home.”

Home comforts

And it’s not a new trend either. Of the 22 away games since Williamson took over, Dons have lost 13 of them, winning only seven.

It is the home form then that has carried Dons, helping them to fourth place last season. And the comfortable confines of Stadium MK so far is their only source of points, and indeed goals, this.

That comfort though is something which Gilbey feels may be working against them.

“We've got a nice home game, safe and cosy and we'll be alright, but we go away and won't know what's going to happen. If you want to get to where we want to be, we can't keep going away and rolling over. You won't get promoted just winning at home every week.”

Is the style at fault?

Dons will vehemently not budge from their style of play - we know that much. It is why Mike Williamson was brought to the club, it is what was recruited for in the summer, it is what the club believe will see them return to League One. So far though, there is been no proof in the pudding.

‘Playing out from the back’ has been too easy to stop and the players can see it the same as everyone else can. But where their ‘softness’ once again gets exposed, according to Gilbey, is that no-one is willing to step up and change it.

He added: “If we don't think it's right to play out, be a man and make a decision. You can't just say this is what the manager is telling us to do, we've got to make decisions for ourselves and we're not doing that well enough.

“We're hiding behind the fact the gaffer wants us to play out, and he'll take all the criticism if it goes wrong. Forget that. He's not out there with us. We've got to do it in the right place at the right time, and we're not even close to doing that. We've done it two games, and we've won twice. That's it.

“Everyone has to stand up and be counted. I know I'm a big part of the problem, but we have to ask how badly we want it now.

“If people don't realise what's just happened, they're in the wrong game. It's easy for everyone to blame the manager and the staff. But if that's how we want to look, we'll be fighting at the wrong end of the table this season.”