THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

THE CAZBAR BIG GAME PREVIEW – DONCASTER ROVERS
As I sit here writing my weekly offering to you, I occasionally glance across at the LG 2 table and wonder how the hell we sit 2nd in the table, it really does beggar belief when largely we have played some really unpleasant to watch football, just imagine what we could do with decent players.

If you look at the 4 league games, we have hardly played well with the Wrexham game the standout performance, but even that has question marks hanging over it now as Wrexham seem to be shipping a hell of a lot of goals and drifting alarmingly in the betting.

The game at Colchester on Saturday almost defies description, Mo with a deft header from a Norman cross and it all looked to be going well, but within 5 minutes a cross from each wing resulted in two quick goals for Colchester and then the late, late show from the Dons when all looked lost, that sent the Dons fans wild in celebration, and home happy with the 3 points tucked safely in the back pocket.

What is becoming concerning is that when we concede, we are just as likely to concede again very quickly. In my opinion this is where we miss Lewie, I doubt the skipper would allow this type of ball across the box, but on both occasions, nobody seemed to want to take responsibility and we paid the price.

I wouldn’t also mind betting this defensive flaw has been spotted by opposition coaches and now teams are trying to exploit it, and it’s only going to get worse until we eradicate it from our game, so we must get to grips with this issue PDQ. Students of the game will realise that teams quickly get a reputation for conceding a particular type of goal, it’s not a coincidence it’s just that with all the technology available to the modern day coach, anyone worth their salt will pick up on it, if we snuff it out quickly now, it will make us harder to beat.

Whilst the teams’ performances are somewhat erratic, the only constant in this club is the fans, no matter what goes on both on and off the field, the fans shrug it off, dust themselves down and travel in numbers and make plenty of noise and just about always out sing the home fans, and those that travelled to Colchester will tell you the atmosphere was off the scale, especially in those last 15 minutes.

Therefore, my message to you is get your tickets for the Crewe game which is always renowned for a good atmosphere from the travelling army. I realise the trains are on strike, but the DSA are expected to lay on extra coaches and there are bound to be a few spare seats in cars advertised, so don’t be disappointed book your coach travel without delay.

We move on then to Saturday to face a tricky customer in Doncaster Rovers at SMK, and I say that because our performances against them a couple of seasons ago when they were bottom of the league and heading for LG 2 both ended in defeat and were a hammer blow to our promotion push, and you could say this is a similar type scenario, we’re 2nd on a bit of a mission and they are struggling in 23rd with just an away win in the EFL Cup against Hull City to their name, theirs and our league records are below.

MK Dons (2nd) – P 4, W 3, D 0, L 1, GF 10, GA 7, Pts 9.
Doncaster (23rd) – P 4, W 0, D 1, L 3, GF 3, GA 10, Pts 1.
MK Dons (H) (16th) – P 1, W 1, D 0, L 0, GF 1, GA 0, Pts 3.
Doncaster (A)(24th) – P 1, W 0, D 0, L 1, GF 0, GA 4, Pts 0.

Whilst we were breaking Colchester’s fans hearts on Saturday Doncaster were hosting one of the promotion favourites at the Keepmoat Notts County who according to the BBC website “strolled to victory”. The final score was 3-1 with Doncaster only scoring in the 95th minute to give them a minor consolation.

Doncaster’s league results so far are shown below with the most recent game shown first.

Doncaster 1 Notts County 2
Doncaster 2 Mansfield 2
Newport 4 Doncaster 0
Doncaster 0 Harrogate 1

For some reason we have a poor record against Doncaster Rovers winning just 3 of the 16 games played, and that will possibly give them some heart going into this fixture. The full record with Dons scorers is shown below.

2004/05 – Dons 0 Doncaster 1
2004/05 – Doncaster 3 Dons 0
2005/06 – Doncaster 1 Dons 1 (McLeod)
2005/06 – Dons 2 Doncaster 3 (Small, Wilbraham)
2012/13 – Doncaster 0 Dons 0
2012/13 – Dons 3 Doncaster 0 (McLeod, Powell, Gleason)
2014/15 – Doncaster 0 Dons 0
2014/15 – Dons 3 Doncaster 0 (Bowditch, C Baker 2)
2017/18 – Doncaster 2 Dons 1 (Aneke)
2017/18 – Dons 1 Doncaster 2 (Ugbo)
2019/20 – Doncaster 1 Dons 1 (Gilbey)
2019/20 – Dons 0 Doncaster 1
2020/21 – Doncaster 1 Dons 1 (Cargill)
2020/21 – Dons 1 Doncaster 0 (Harvie)
2021/22 – Doncaster 2 Dons 1 (Kioso)
2021/22 – Dons 0 Doncaster 1
That’s a record of P 16, W 3, D 5, L 8, GF 15, GA 18.

Incidentally, and although not relevant for this fixture, you may not have spotted we have never won at the Keepmoat in 8 attempts.

The man at the helm at Doncaster and probably already under pressure is someone well known to us as a three times manager of Peterborough Utd, yes folks it’s Grant McCann who bucks the trend of “never go back”. This is also his second stint at Doncaster a position he has held since May 2023, previously he left Donny to take over the hot seat at Hull City where he lasted three years until given the sack by the newly installed Turkish consortium.

Former Northern Ireland international McCann has only fallen once under that magical 33% Win Ratio, and that is the current situation here at Donny where it stands at just 20% although his career stats bump that right up to nearly 40%.

For the benefit of the tape his managerial career spans 8 years where he has overseen 353 games with a record of W 141, D 80, L 132.

Not much to go on dangerman wise but last year’s top scorer George Miller with 11 goals in 34 league games has already opened his account this season with 2 goals in the League Cup.

On the betting front we are once again the favourites to claim the points, but I would suggest still at a fairly attractive price.

MK Dons 4/5, Draw 29/10, Doncaster 4/1.

As for a prediction I doubt you will find many giving Donny a sniff in this one, but we’ve said that before haven’t we…I’ll take the Dons to win anyway with my favourite scoreline of 3-1.

I’m going to leave you this week with another moan about Dan Kemp being loaned out to Swindon Town. He scored a brace at the weekend against Wrexham and continues to look like the type of player we are trying to sign on, from my uneducated point of view it seems like we are cutting our nose off to spite our face, but it’s so MK.

See you Soon.

WD

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Read the MELTDOWN after every game, no bullshit, just giving it straight

The top three play the bottom three tomorrow.
Lots of goals or some upsets?

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I like clean air and low traffic

I've always enjoyed playing Donny. Usually a good game. Even the ones we lose (so, most) are good games where both sides tried to play.

I also really like Grant McCann and have suggested several times he'd be a good pick. He, in 2018 was one of my picks alongside Alexander and Ferguson. He was seen leaving the loss to Donny in 2018 at home, just before our relegation. Outside the RDB I saw him walk past and asked him if he is gonna be taking over Dons next season. He said "something like that..." - he took over at Doncaster a few weeks later .

A rocky start but I think he'll get it right. They're a good side, and this won't be a rollover. I don't think we can be shocked if we fail to win, as I said they'll come good eventually and there's no reason it can't start here.

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#DonYourWhite

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Positions in the table don’t mean much yet and I expect Doncaster to start picking up wins. Think today will be a tough game.