Marked for Liam Kelly
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match15 Jan 2028
18 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Milton Keynes Dons has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad17 Jan 2028
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad17 Jan 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad17 Jan 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Milton Keynes Dons this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Ben Kindon gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ben Kindon has just signed for Milton Keynes Dons, and for once the answer mattered.
The terraces17 Jan 2028
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match15 Jan 2028
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Reading? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match27 Nov 2027
11 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Milton Keynes Dons has to find a result from somewhere.
Match29 Nov 2027
Position 19 and 8 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Squad29 Nov 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Milton Keynes Dons this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Milton Keynes Dons training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kane Wilson is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad29 Nov 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Liam Kelly and Milton Keynes Dons agree another 2 years.
Squad29 Nov 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nathaniel Méndez-Laing, and the manager let it.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Marked 7.82. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Match27 Nov 2027
It needed Aaron Collins to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Ipswich Town, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Sam Nombe runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad20 Sep 2027
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Callan McKenna: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Match15 Sep 2027
Out, 0‑0 to Cardiff City, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad20 Sep 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Callan McKenna is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Match18 Sep 2027
Middlesbrough left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The terraces20 Sep 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Callan McKenna has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match17 Apr 2027
The run now stands at 12, and the questions being asked around Milton Keynes Dons are no longer polite ones.
Squad19 Apr 2027
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match17 Apr 2027
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Milton Keynes Dons can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad19 Apr 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Aaron Collins was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Pape Matar Sarr falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.