‘An Opportunity For MK Dons’ – The Word On City’s Cup Opposition
- Leicester City travel to meet MK Dons in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night
- The fourth-round tie is a 7:45pm kick-off at Stadium MK
- MK Citizen Sports Editor Toby Lock gave the lowdown on the Dons
- Free coverage of the cup encounter will be live across LCFC TV
A 7:45pm kick-off at Stadium MK, the fourth-round meeting with the Sky Bet League 1 side marks a return to competitive action for Brendan Rodgers’ outfit, over a month on from beating West Ham United in the Premier League.
The Dons, meanwhile, have enjoyed a full fixture schedule across the FIFA World Cup break, including beating Portsmouth 2-0 on Saturday, which could provide an edge over their top-flight opponents.
“The cup competitions have been where Dons have had the most joy,” the journalist explained to LCFC Radio's Matchday Live. “They went out of the Papa Johns Trophy last midweek but it’s as far as they have gone in all three cup competitions for many years.
“It’s a free hit and a great tie for MK Dons. Everyone wants to look at these cup draws and think if we can land a big Premier League side, it’s an exciting one for people to come out and brave the cold at Stadium MK and watch. What an opportunity for them.
“With Leicester not having played for a month during the World Cup, why not go after it? They are in a win-win situation. No one expects them to go through so they have a decent money-spinning tie and if they do go through, then it’s the shock of the round that everyone will be talking about.
“There’s no reason they can’t if all of the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.”
There has been plenty of change around Stadium MK over the past few months, including an overhaul of the playing staff and the departure of manager Liam Manning earlier this month after he guided the club to the play-offs last term.
With the team now sitting in the third-tier relegation zone, collecting 18 points from 21 games in 2022/23, longest-serving player Dean Lewington has been placed in caretaker charge, though he will not be present on Tuesday.
Lock continued: “After Liam Manning left last weekend, there’s no one on the immediate horizon, so it’s a trying time. The football hasn’t been good, down near the bottom of League 1, which is a far cry from where they wanted to be after finishing third last season and pushing for promotion.
“Missing out on automatic promotion by a point and missing out in the play-offs, it’s all gone downhill in the last few months. The summer recruitment didn’t live up to the standard. They lost 14 players and brought in 14 new ones who haven’t hit the mark. The process was too vast, effectively bringing in a whole new squad.
“It was always going to take time to gel and unfortunately you don’t have that time in football. You can’t have a few months where you’re waiting for things to happen, it has to happen as soon as they come in. And that just hasn’t happened.
“Obviously when you come as close as Dons did to promotion, there are going to be players from that who are plucked. Scott Twine went to Burnley and Harry Darling went to Swansea. The loan players who performed really well have all gone on to bigger things in the Championship and a few players who didn’t sign contracts moved on. The best part of £20M left the club in terms of players.
“With club legend Dean Lewington taking over, the stalwart approaching 1,000 games, he was due hamstring surgery last week but with that Papa Johns Trophy game, he was in caretaker charge and they delayed it.
“But it’s an operation that has to be done, so he won’t be in the dugout on Tuesday night. It will be yet another remarkable story if Dons are to somehow win it.”
Lock holds some hope and optimism that the Dons will be able to steer themselves out of trouble, however, with more positives performances – and results – starting to occur in recent weeks, including the two trips to Fratton Park.
“Despite losing games, the performances haven’t been that bad,” he added. “There have been a handful of occasions where they haven’t deserved anything, but there have also been occasions, particularly the second half away to Portsmouth in the FA Cup a couple of weeks ago, where they ran Pompey off the pitch and were unlucky not to come away with at least forcing extra-time.
“The performances are there in periods. What they need to do is tie it altogether for a 90-minute game. We’ve seen that so rarely this season. But if they can put one together, or even a decent hour, they might catch Leicester cold.”