MK Dons Season Review 2025/26

At the start of the 2025/26 season, MK Dons were seen by many as a team that should be fighting for promotion and this time, the predictions turned out to be accurate.

The title may have been ultimately a step too far, but a team that finished 19th in 2025 was widely predicted to be turning things around thanks to its summer overhaul and be in the mix to return to League One.

Sure enough, they duly did. But it would be fair to say their journey to a return to the third tier was not serene progress in the way some potentially expected. It certainly didn’t reach the 100 point mark as seemed to be the top end of some predictions.

As it was, however, the celebrations seen among fans, players and other hangers on in the aftermath of the win over Tranmere that confirmed promotion had the purposes of marking the primary job being done, happiness to avoid the play-off roulette and a sense of relief that MK Dons were finally returning to League One.

The last 4 years in Milton Keynes had been pretty chaotic. A botched rebuild in the summer of 2022 helped start the process that lead to a shock 2023 relegation into League Two, multiple defensive collapses in both league and play-offs undermined the 2023/24 promotion push and the 2024/25 season ended up being a total disaster.

When Paul Warne arrived at MK Dons just over a year ago, the goal he would be set was to get the club to do better and return to a position to challenge for promotion.

It would be safe to say that the new owners had a cheque book ready to go in support of this. Heavy investment was made in the summer with some League One or even Championship worthy talents making their way through the door at MK1.

Firepower like club record signing Aaron Collins, Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, Callum Paterson and Rushian Hepburn-Murphy provided a scene change from some of the young talents MK Dons had previously taken a chance on, with the team immediately put in as strong contenders.

The transition to this new state of being a team that could mix it at the top wasn’t smooth, however. After 9 games, MK Dons found themselves down in 14th following a home loss to Accrington Stanley, which was a third straight home loss, and leaving some Dons fans still processing what happened last season worried the hype may have been overblown.

That misfire wound up leading to MK Dons tweaking things. Warne initially looked to use 4 at the back tactics, whether it was a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, but with injuries and a litany of other issues, Warne jettisoned that and pivoted it to a 3 at the back system, in keeping with most Dons bosses in the last decade.

Performance was soon unlocked. The low against Stanley was followed by four wins in a row to fly up the standings, with the Dons staying in the top 6 for the entire remainder of the season.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing. Some moments would see the Dons look slick, and others not so much, with Warne getting particularly irritated in the first home game of 2026 when they conceded a last minute equaliser at home to Chesterfield, following on from a New Year’s Day loss to a last minute penalty at Colchester.

The fact that all 4 of the new attacking stars got injuries at various points also created some momentum issues, with the likes of Will Collar, summer arrival Kane Wilson and January recruit Jay Matete among those to also have their campaigns hindered by knocks.

MK Dons duly acted quickly in January, with trusted Warne men Ben Wiles and Curtis Nelson signed early in the window and going straight in as regulars in the first team. It suddenly lead to things clicking, with Warne’s side going 14 games unbeaten.

Not every match was flawless, but the points on the board soon added up and saw the Dons in a strong position going into the final weeks of the season. But then came hints of a wobble, with the unbeaten run ended by Barnet, a second defeat in a row at Salford and a hugely disappointing draw at home to a struggling Barrow.

Many Dons fans duly got the fear that they might be caught up by those below, in a vibe not helped by the concession of a late equaliser at Oldham on Easter Monday. After all, the goal at this point wasn’t quite so much confirming automatic promotion so much as it was avoiding the play-offs, which MK Dons have never won promotion via.

Warne may well have backed his side to get the job done if it came to, pointing to his own previous successful navigations of that process, but this time, MK Dons stuck the landing. A brilliant first half attacking display and second half defensive display got the job done in a frantic contest with the long-time leaders Bromley, before wins over Crewe and Tranmere got the job done.

It may not have had the coda Dons fans were dreaming of, as they arrived at Fleetwood on the final day leading the league only to draw and see Bromley swipe the title trophy and the gold medals. But the main relief for MK Dons fans is nonetheless that the base goal of promotion is achieved.

This is a season that MK Dons will ultimately look back on fondly, with a determined team assembled in pursuit of the singular goal of getting promoted getting the job done. It was a season that helped with some impressive redemption arcs, with Liam Kelly going from being booed by fans in spring 2025 to the first name on the teamsheet long before spring 2026, Craig MacGillivray re-establishing himself as the number one and the likes of Luke Offord, Dan Crowley and Joe Tomlinson all having their moments.

What’s next is now a curio. It is not a stretch to imagine the Dons assembling a decent League One side with the right budget and additions, with some talk even out there of the club being in a position to go for back-to-back promotions. That may be easier said than done, of course.

While returning to the Championship for the first time since 2015/16 is no doubt the end goal, League One next year looks like it will be stacked. Relegated trio Oxford, Leicester and Sheffield Wednesday will all be targeting immediate returns, while promotion will also be the goal of whichever 3 don’t get up through the play-offs, sides who were disappointed not to make the play-offs like Luton, Plymouth, Huddersfield, Wycombe and Reading, or sides who’ve been in the Championship in living memory but underperformed this season like Barnsley, Peterborough, Blackpool and Wigan. And that’s to say nothing of a renewal of hostilities with AFC Wimbledon.

Working out where MK Dons will come amid that is all to come, no doubt, and a clearer image of what’s possible will likely come after the transfer window. But until then, if nothing else, MK Dons have developed a platform worth building on, and fans will hope the 2025/26 season will be looked back on as the start of a decent period for the club.