Paul Warne pleased to see MK Dons end wait for first competitive win of season in Crawley contest

Paul Warne was happy that MK Dons ended their wait for a first competitive win of the season by taking victory over Crawley Town.

The Dons picked up a first competitive win of the campaign with victory in the Jersey Mike’s Trophy, as goals by Ben Wiles, Jack Sanders, Elijah Campbell and Rushian Hepburn-Murphy did the job in a 4-1 win for a side that are still yet to win a League One game so far this campaign.

Warne said that while he had concerns over the early stages of the Dons’ performance, they did well to build their way into the game and get the win.

He said, “Overall, I’m pleased. I’m pleased to win the game, pleased with the amount of chances we created, pleased with the goals we got and four different scorers. I was disappointed with the first 20 minutes – I thought we were soft and unathletic and a bit, not arrogant, but just didn’t look it. We warned them before the game that sometimes these games can be a bit difficult to get into and sometimes you need a tackle or goal that wakes everybody up, and I thought after we scored the first goal, our performance improved.

“I think we leave pretty pleased. The lads got minutes in them and no injuries, and all these things are pretty positive for us.”

Reflecting further, Warne said he felt the team grew into the game after a fairly slow start to proceedings.

He said, “I thought we created a lot of good chances and took them. 1-0 in the last 20 minutes, you don’t want to have a heart attack unnecessarily, so its nice to have a comfortable win but it didn’t feel like comfortable after 25 minutes. Anything but. I just thought we have another gear and that’s virtually what I said at half-time – we need to give a bit more and I thought some of our play after was really good.”

With top scorer Aaron Collins rested, Warne said he was happy to see four players get on the score sheet for the first time this season.

He said, “I’m really pleased. In fairness, Curtis Nelson was joking today he’s the second-highest scorer at the club at the moment on one! Last year, we shared the goals out really well – I know Callum Paterson had the lion’s share but you need goal scorers throughout the pitch and four scorers is good for their confidence.”

The Dons now face a break of over two weeks until their next league game, and two weeks until the next EFL Trophy contest, and Warne said the team would have some time off before some more intensive training to prepare for the next stage of the season.

He said, “We’ve got training for a few days then I’m giving the lads time off for the weekend. I want them to have time with their families, I want time with mine, I want the staff to have the time off. Some clubs are having the whole week off then starting again but we’re trying to train pretty hard in a good way – not just that they’re running up hills or something crazy but try and get better at a lot of things that weren’t as good as we’d like earlier in the season.

“We’ve got a game at our training ground with another team and a game among ourselves so its a good opportunity to refresh and be honest and candid with the lads knowing we don’t have to worry about fatigue.

“It’s a good opportunity to work with the team and if we can stay injury-free, we’ve got a good group to work with so the next weeks will be about that.”

While the Dons’ league campaign now goes on hiatus, Reading will still play both their games before visiting Stadium MK next month, and Warne said it’ll be an interesting contest when they meet to see who used their intervening time better.

He said, “There’s no right or wrong. If I was Reading and we went and won two league games, we’d go into that game buzzing. We could come in fresh or rusty – that’s the honest truth. It does enable us to watch them, but we still have these cup games to keep us ticking along.

“It’s strange to come out of an international break and the other team hasn’t had one as well if that makes sense. We’ll know in 3 weeks time who had the better 3 weeks.”