Liam Manning impressed by improving MK Dons

Posted Wednesday, November 09, 2022 by PA

MK Dons head coach Liam Manning feels his side’s attack continued to turn a corner in the 2-0 victory over Morecambe that took them into the fourth round of the Carabao Cup.

The Dons are fourth from bottom in Sky Bet League One but are now unbeaten in four games in all competitions, keeping clean sheets in all four, and have started to find the net more regularly.

In truth, they were barely tested by the Shrimps, their fellow third-tier strugglers, but they now have a potential glamour tie to look forward to in the week before Christmas.

Manning said: “It’s about being clinical and about being ruthless and we’ve seen games before this season where we’ve created really good chances and not taken them.

“I think what we’ve started to do in the last few games, if you look at the weekend especially [against Taunton in the FA Cup] we’ve started to add that element.

“It’s not coincidence, we do a lot of work on it and credit to the players, they do a huge amount of individual work, whether it’s video or whether it’s on the grass.

“We’ve got a terrific group of staff that grab the players to do the extra work to try and replicate the pictures we get into in matches, and they go and deliver it.

“Of course, if we create the chances we have to make sure we are clinical and we shift the momentum by taking the chances and get on top that way.”

After Jack Tucker hit a post for MK Dons early on, his fellow defender Warren O’Hora opened the scoring after 18 minutes with a crisp volley.

Half-time substitute Matthew Dennis took just five minutes to double the Dons’ lead when he ran onto Darragh Burns’ pass and finished, despite being pulled back by Morecambe’s Farrend Rawson.

Morecambe boss Derek Adams said: “We were beaten by a far better team than us.

“You can see how well MK Dons played tonight, they passed the ball well, they ran hard, they got the ball back really well.

“I’d just like to apologise to the supporters tonight.

“We’ve come up against a far better team than us tonight – they were quicker on the ball, they moved it better, their understanding of the game was better than us tonight.

“We made a number of errors throughout the night, we weren’t good enough on the ball, we weren’t good enough out of possession, either, and MK Dons’ rotation all over the pitch caused us problems.

“We have gone away from home and won at the likes of Rotherham and Forest Green, but it was difficult tonight because MK Dons are a team who’ve got a lot of talented players.”