January window vital in helping Dons find short-term success

Liam Manning has admittedMK Dons’ summer recruitment process has seen a short-term hit in success, with focus now on January to help them put things right.

Fourteen new signings arrived at the club in the summer after the disappointing end to last season’s play-off campaign, but thatdisappointmenthas followed Manning’s side into the new campaign, with nine defeats from their opening 13 games inLeague One.

With few players making stand-out impacts this season, new or existing, Manning admitted the recruitment drive over the summer was with the club’s long-term future inmind, but the short-term success has been hampered as a result.

“Our short term success has taken a bit of a hit which maybe we could have done better with in terms of recruiting,” he said.

“What we did in the summer was to prevent us being in the position where we're losing a big volume of players. We've created a level of consistency over the next few years. We all want short term success, but we have to look at the medium and long term too.”

Still more than two months away from the transfer window reopening on January 1, 2023, Manning said Liam Sweeting’s recruitment team are already looking at the business they can forge to address those short-term shortcomings.

The head coach continued: “It will be an important window, but we have to do the right business, not jsut panicking and doing anything. I think we'll do a fair amount of work in January to refine. It's important after the work we did in the summer that we refine the group again to be successful.

“Last January, we faced some business we didn't want but we responded and reacted extremely well.

“We're already working on what January could look like, what business we're looking to do, what the squad looks like and what we need.

“Things are already being done so we're not reacting in January, but being pro-active, forward thinking and looking at what we need to do.”