The Official MK Dons Match Thread (Sponsored by Keith Millen "for all your caretaking needs") | Page 10 | Vital Football

The Official MK Dons Match Thread (Sponsored by Keith Millen "for all your caretaking needs")

Well Fan said:
Thank you, thank you, thank you and finally thank you.

Hopefully GA gets his P45 soon. Delicious result.
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Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Monday. 7 without a win. Especially as Bratfud and us have “gone early”. Might find MK react sooner rather than later.
 
The one thing that was evident early on in the game yesterday (although not always successful in the first 20 minutes) was the tempo and speed at which we tried to move the ball, something we haven't seen alot of. That coupled with better movement meant we created space and decent chances.

Given the options on the bench KM either had to go pretty defensive, something which we've learned normally bites us on the arse. We're a far better team when we play on the front foot. Having said all that we should (Mahoney being a greedy git) have been out of sight by the time it git to the last 15 minutes.

Let's hope with a few players back next week we can produce more like the middle hour performance of yesterday.
 
Medley said:
I rarely post on here, despite reading everything. This evening however, my silence is broken. I can’t believe the comments about us trying to shut up shop and nature of defensive subs. A good few of our boys were absolutely done in. If they had stayed on we’d have effectively had nine men, and likely muscle injuries. What was Millen meant to do? Bring on Sithole? Added to which MK brought on attackers to salvage a point or more. If we’d had a decent bench I’m sure we’d have made like for like changes. But Millen had no choice. Blimey people, revel in a totally committed performance from every single one of our players, good attacking intent, two goals and three points. And…at least one world class save in the final knocking, as well as a top drawer one in the first half. All with half a bloody decent team sitting in row 2 behind the dugouts. Well played boys!
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That’s a bold statement.
 
Breckland said:
It certainly is ...if our players aren't fit enough to play for 90 minutes there's something wrong with our training regime.
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Definitely a strange one. EPL players going out to play in Saudi Arabia and ours are out on the feet during October in Britain? :unsure:

Good whoosh by the way, Steeeeeeves.
 
jogills said:
There was some horrible MK defending but, having watched EFL highlights, that's widespread in League 2. If you don't have any attacking intent you won't find out the horribleness.
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Totally agree. How many times (last season especially) have we lost to shite goals that we just never scored ourselves? Nice to see us punishing them yesterday.
 
jogills said:
There was some horrible MK defending but, having watched EFL highlights, that's widespread in League 2. If you don't have any attacking intent you won't find out the horribleness.
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Looking at both goals, it was our pressing, harassing and getting in their face that contributed to both “mistakes”. The defenders didn’t have time to dwell on the ball and pick a pass.

That’s one of the benefits of playing 2 up top. If there’s only one, it’s almost impossible to keep closing them down and do that all game. But 2 (with support from another midfielder or 2) can keep that pressure on, and L2 defenders always have a mistake in them. Even Prem defenders do.
 
Didn't we play two up front for the whole second half of last season, with Hawkins and Nichols?

That was what I witnessed at Colchester, anyway.

Nichols certainly saw them as a partnership, judging by his praise of the Hawk.
 
Therealwaldo said:
In injury time we got a free kick near their box. A bloke was shouting at Jeffries to get in the box. By that time it was all Jeffries could do to get up and down the pitch. He gave him a look that was venomous but didn’t say anything. I was with Jeffries on that one.
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Jeffries was done by 75 minutes - after a tremendous amount of work.
He should have been substituted before either of the two that were.
 
GillsBluenose said:
Didn't we play two up front for the whole second half of last season, with Hawkins and Nichols?
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I thought we did. And NH always said 4-4-2 with wingers was his preferred method. And yet for some reason he rarely did it this season. Very strange, given this season we’ve had 3 decent forwards to chose from (plus the injured Hawk) but he generally only played one. Has to be some reason. Especially as a lack of goals was/is our only big deficiency.
 
gills69 said:
With no other forwards on the bench I'd have left Nichols on and taken off DJ who had already made some tired looking tackles and passes. Bringing on McKenzie or MacArthur, rather than Ehmer wouldn't have changed the set up quite as much and wouldn't have led to us inviting so much pressure.

Max Clarke on for Jayden Clarke was fair enough.

How we went from a team winning 2-0 and looking to go for 3 to a team that, if it not for some great saves by Turner, might have lost 4-2 is beyond me.

Player ratings, as no-one else has done any yet.

Turner 9 (MotM)
Alexander 6
Ogie 9
Masterson 7
Malone 6
Coleman 8
Jefferies 6
Clarke 5
Nichols 7
Bonne 8
Mahoney 6
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Around 75 mins, DJ just stopped - when earlier he would have gone towards the penalty area. (DJ had worked his socks off.)

No one around me could understand the double defensive substitution.
It sent a message to MK - which they reacted to.

McKenzie can play anywhere and appearing to start behind Bonne would have implied "steady as she goes".
Millen could still have told McK to drop back later.

Going to the corner flag is fine in the last 60 seconds - of added time.
But achieves little at 89 minutes - other than to transmit a negative mindset - inviting pressure.

Similarly with that free kick (from the red card) - where our defence went back to the half-way line.
That was around the 90 - so still a time to put pressure on the MK goal.

Surely "game management" should be about keeping the ball in the opposition half....
...and when not possible, hoof the ball diagonally into the crowd for a throw-in ?
 
Tarian said:
Around 75 mins, DJ just stopped - when earlier he would have gone towards the penalty area. (DJ had worked his socks off.)

No one around me could understand the double defensive substitution.
It sent a message to MK - which they reacted to.

McKenzie can play anywhere and appearing to start behind Bonne would have implied "steady as she goes".
Millen could still have told McK to drop back later.

Going to the corner flag is fine in the last 60 seconds - of added time.
But achieves little at 89 minutes - other than to transmit a negative mindset - inviting pressure.

Similarly with that free kick (from the red card) - where our defence went back to the half-way line.
That was around the 90 - so still a time to put pressure on the MK goal.

Surely "game management" should be about keeping the ball in the opposition half....
...and when not possible, hoof the ball diagonally into the crowd for a throw-in ?
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Agree with this, Jefferies was a passenger at this stage. I couldn't understand why he wasn't replaced by McKenzie
 
After a slightly slow start (which we’ll afford the caretaker) as the new line-up, formation and approach bedded in, I thought that we were a breath of fresh air for the first hour. I liked the line-up and formation. I was calling in a separate post for us to drop the two CDMs and also go two up top and we did that. I also suggested that DJ may be more effective as a second CM next to Coleman or S Williams playing a more box to box role and he was. We played more of a traditional 4-4-2 to start and it worked and even more so when Bonne came on as he seemed to have the bit between his teeth (clearly wanted to keep his place and surely he will regardless of whether Nadesan recovers in time for Walsall).

The difference for me between our first 60 yesterday and recent Harris performances was that there was more tempo, more of an energetic press, more width and more options up front and for an hour or so we were deservedly well in control and in fact could and should have been 3 or 4 nil up before they scored - finishing and the final ball was better than recently but there were still occasions where our finishing and final ball were lacking and we almost lived to regret that, but we did enough.

The result was the main thing, but it was disappointing that Millen opted for the NH shut up shop approach for the last 20 and it almost cost us. I get that we had a number of players out, players in the pitch were knackered and the bench was thin, but why hook Nichols who seemed to have quite a bit in the tank (hadn’t played much recently too) is more creative and leave DJ on who was clearly spent and doesn’t offer that class going forward? We got away with it a bit, but that isn’t to say that we didn’t deserve to win and probably by more than one, but with a bit of better luck and composure, MK could have easily equalised. Again, Turner made some good saves (although did have a funny five minutes in the second half - especially his kicking), but TBF their keeper was probably tested more and made some great saves.

More holistically. I think yesterday showed that we have the players for promotion - we just need the right manager. It’s clear to me that that wasn’t Harris and despite a good 60-65 mins that isn’t Millen as the last 20 mins is clearly what Brad doesn’t want to see.

I think we can get something at Walsall next weekend regardless - even a point would steady the recent poor run away, but I think we need our new man before the crucial Notts County game with other big games to come after that - we’d ideally want him in place on Monday week at the latest I’d say to get us properly prepared for Notss County. No time for extended drawn out recruitment processes this time.
 
SteveTreacle said:
After a slightly slow start (which we’ll afford the caretaker) as the new line-up, formation and approach bedded in, I thought that we were a breath of fresh air for the first hour. I liked the line-up and formation. I was calling in a separate post for us to drop the two CDMs and also go two up top and we did that. I also suggested that DJ may be more effective as a second CM next to Coleman or S Williams playing a more box to box role and he was. We played more of a traditional 4-4-2 to start and it worked and even more so when Bonne came on as he seemed to have the bit between his teeth (clearly wanted to keep his place and surely he will regardless of whether Nadesan recovers in time for Walsall).

The difference for me between our first 60 yesterday and recent Harris performances was that there was more tempo, more of an energetic press, more width and more options up front and for an hour or so we were deservedly well in control and in fact could and should have been 3 or 4 nil up before they scored - finishing and the final ball was better than recently but there were still occasions where our finishing and final ball were lacking and we almost lived to regret that, but we did enough.

The result was the main thing, but it was disappointing that Millen opted for the NH shut up shop approach for the last 20 and it almost cost us. I get that we had a number of players out, players in the pitch were knackered and the bench was thin, but why hook Nichols who seemed to have quite a bit in the tank (hadn’t played much recently too) is more creative and leave DJ on who was clearly spent and doesn’t offer that class going forward? We got away with it a bit, but that isn’t to say that we didn’t deserve to win and probably by more than one, but with a bit of better luck and composure, MK could have easily equalised. Again, Turner made some good saves (although did have a funny five minutes in the second half - especially his kicking), but TBF their keeper was probably tested more and made some great saves.

More holistically. I think yesterday showed that we have the players for promotion - we just need the right manager. It’s clear to me that that wasn’t Harris and despite a good 60-65 mins that isn’t Millen as the last 20 mins is clearly what Brad doesn’t want to see.

I think we can get something at Walsall next weekend regardless - even a point would steady the recent poor run away, but I think we need our new man before the crucial Notts County game with other big games to come after that - we’d ideally want him in place on Monday week at the latest I’d say to get us properly prepared for Notss County. No time for extended drawn out recruitment processes this time.
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Excellent post Steve I fully agree.
 
chris who said:
Watch Gills in the blood match day live if you want to see Malone's Harris tribute.I missed it live as I had to rush off to be sure to get my second part of journey train home.
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We also missed it on the live iFollow feed..... as soon as the game is finished it's time for adverts. Thankfully it was also uploaded to X and I have to say, Malone earned the right to take the tribute. He was superb yesterday.
 
SteveTreacle said:
More holistically. I think yesterday showed that we have the players for promotion - we just need the right manager. It’s clear to me that that wasn’t Harris and despite a good 60-65 mins that isn’t Millen as the last 20 mins is clearly what Brad doesn’t want to see.
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That assumes that Millen could not reflect on the final 20 minutes and do things differently next time.

For example:
i) Using McKenzie earlier. He could have started as a decoy forward.

ii) Not making it so blindingly obvious that Gills were going defensive.

iii) e.g. Continuing to set up for free-kicks and corners as if to attack.
It is perfectly possible to feign attacking intent by positioning players around the edge of the penalty area - rather than crowding the keeper - so providing 10 yards extra cover

iv) Instructions NOT to go to the corner flag too early. Instead, taking a shot - or hopeful cross - that goes into Row Z isn't quite so obvious !
 
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