Manager Karl Robinson has now held his pre MK Dons press conference, and as well as discussing the game itself, he has distanced himself from speculation linking him with the Barnsley job.
With Paul Heckingbottom making the unexpected switch to Leeds United days after signing a new contract at Oakwell, the rumour mill has been in overdrive linking people to their vacant hotseat, but Robinson has said he wants no part of it as he’s focused on the job in hand.
Speaking to the Official Site to address those links, Robinson explained.
‘My agent phoned me saying ‘listen, this is the situation`, and I said ‘I don’t want to be on it (shortlist)`. I don’t see Barnsley for me. This is a place where I want to be. I want this club to be in the Championship – it`s as simple as that. But we have to go to the Championship clean, with everything that`s happened over the last five years gone.’
He added.
‘We’ve worked hard to put ourselves in this position and I`m not going to walk away from something when we’ve worked so hard over the last 12 months. There have been other opportunities to leave while I`ve been here, but I spoke to my agent the other day, and I`m so happy. This is an unbelievable club.’
As for the game itself, Robinson’s main focus was in ensuring we didn’t lose another lead late on again given our recent run.
‘If you look at the two goals we`ve conceded recently they`ve been two deflections that have ended up in the path of the opposition. The Oxford one was my fault and I took full responsibility for that. I never shy away from when I make a mistake but I can`t blame anybody for a defender trying to block a shot or a defender trying to block a cross and it landing in the arms of somebody else. That`s just the way it is and that is just the way you have to deal with the unpredictability of the industry. We`re in a good place, we feel we`re playing well, we know we just have to get that second goal to make it more comfortable for ourselves.’
He went on to explain.
‘We were speaking earlier, if you look at what we`ve done in the last 12 months, more than £10m has gone out, we`ve cut the wage bill, we`ve not spent six figures. I think it has been remarkable what everyone has done at the football club to put ourselves in this position. The problem is, I think we`ve excited a lot of people early on and the expectation levels have certainly grown, so we have to burden the weight of that and that is just part and parcel of being at a big football club, when you excite people you have to follow it through. We`re in a great position, we feel like there is a lot of games to go, we soldier on, we march on.’
Returning to his former club, Robinson said he had full respect for MK Dons and he wasn’t expected a hot reaction from their fans, but for 90 minutes friendships go out the window, as he fully expects it to do on their side.
One thing he was sure we would face was a tough match though.
‘Looking at their recent results, they`ve only lost by one goal. They could have argued that it would be so, so different but that is the nature of the beast while you are down there. Watching their games the last few days, they are playing a back five with a diamond which is a bit different. You can see they are certainly starting to get a style and a way back of playing. We`re under no illusions of how difficult it is going to be but we`re fully focused.’
He also gave an update on Jason Pearce, stating that although he was now building his way back to fitness following injury, and he does have between 60 to 70 minutes under his belt for our Under 23 side, this game comes too quickly for him and the plan is for him to get a full 90 under his belt before he comes back into contention.
