Paul Warne delighted to win promotion with MK Dons

MK Dons Head Coach Paul Warne voiced his delight to win promotion as his side confirmed their return to the third tier.

Goals from Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, Alex Gilbey and Callum Paterson did the job for the Dons to see off Tranmere, as a 3-0 win at Stadium MK confirmed the Dons’ promotion after a 3 season stay in League Two.

Promotion was Warne’s fifth as a manager, having previously won 3 with Rotherham and 1 with Derby County, and speaking after the game, he said he felt the emotions of the day made it a day that he could be happy about.

He said, “I’m really proud of the fact I got another promotion and my mum, daughter, son and wife were all here. But I’m just so pleased and buzzing for the lads. They look so happy and I get emotional about stuff like this. You don’t have many days in your life that are absolutely amazing and the fact that collectively, we’ve been able to do it for the city, the players, their families and the owner is something I regard greater than the promotion.”

Warne praised his team for recovering from a rough patch to win 4 straight matches and get the points needed to deliver the promotion. He also said one final mission would be to try and get points in their season finale next week to confirm his side as League Two champions.

He said, “To win 4 on the spin at this time of the season is difficult. Winning games when you have to isn’t easy but in fairness to the lads, they’ve been excellent all season, deserve to go up, deserve to go up at home and I still think they’re the best team in the league. We’ve got one more game to go so hopefully we go next week and perform at a level to get us a title.”

Reflecting on the Tranmere match in isolation, Warne said that the team ultimately had enough to keep Tranmere from scoring and was happy with that.

He said, “If they’d have got a goal, it would’ve been edgy and the longer the game went on, even though they played in midweek and we didn’t, I thought our physicality might be a bit too much. But the goal does change things and at 2-0, they had a goal disallowed. If it goes in, we might get really edgy and they might go for it but today, fortunately, we kept a clean sheet. I’m not saying the scoreline was flattering – we could’ve scored more and conceded but we kept the clean sheet.”

Looking ahead to the future, Warne said that with promotion assured, plans will now begin to take shape for the upcoming summer transfer window and preparing the squad for the next level.

He said, “I will have a recruitment chat with the owner next week, try and get him to put more money in as you always do as a manager, and then the most important thing will be to organise a lads trip. That’ll be the most important thing!

“There are decisions to have – there always are at the end of every season. But we’ve got a real good skeleton of a League One team here with really good foundations and we probably just need to add more sugar.”