Bromley vs MK Dons preview
In August 2024, longtime MK Dons owner Pete Winkelman sold the club to a Kuwait-based consortium led by Fahad Al Ghanim.
The move signalled a changing of the guard, but it also raised fans’ hopes that new investment would take their club to the level of football that their infrastructure is built for.
Since their acrimonious move to Milton Keynes in 2004, the Dons have spent much of their time in League One, with only a solitary season in the 2015/16 Championship to show for all of their bluster.
This season represents only their fifth season in League Two in their 20 years of existence. Each time they have been at this level, they have made it a short stay. In fact, they have never finished outside of the top four.
Last season was no exception as they qualified for the play-offs, only to lose to Crawley 8-1 over two legs.
It would appear the owners studied and took inspiration from that defeat. When their manager Mike Williamson jumped ship to move to Carlisle last week, the Dons snapped up Scott Lindsey; the manager who masterminded Crawley Town’s play-off success last season.
You can see why Lindsey has made the jump. MK Dons, on the surface at least, are a big club crying out for a launch-pad manager who can make them realise their potential.
Their capital, squad, and infrastructure are built for promotion, and the investors will want them to quickly repeat the trick in League One. If only it were that simple.
Still, Lindsey will be licking his lips at the quality at his disposal. Over the summer, previous manager Williamson added Tommy Leigh (Accrington), Luke Offord (Crewe), Sam Sherring (Northampton), Connor Lemonheigh-Evans (Stockport), Laurence Maguire (Chesterfield), Calum Hendry (Salford), and Liam Kelly (Crawley).
I could add a whole host of other names to the Dons’ list of dangerous players, but the gist is this squad should be in the top five at the bare minimum.
Even though the Dons sold starlet Max Dean to top-flight Belgian side Ghent for £2 million, and sold their stand-out wing-back Daniel Harvie to League One Wycombe Wanderers for an undisclosed fee, they have quality and depth in their squad that Bromley could only dream of.
That said, Bromley could only dream of signing Carl Jenkinson, yet here we are.
In case you somehow missed it, on Friday afternoon, news broke that Bromley have signed former Premier League and one-time England international Carl Jenkinson, who was available as a free agent after two seasons with Newcastle Jets in Australia.
Carl will link up with Andy Woodman for the second time in his career after the pair worked together in Charlton’s youth setup.
Woody has often spoken about his experience in the game and the clubs he has worked at, and after pulling off this signature you have to hand it to him. In his first interview with the club, Jenkinson implied that his relationship with Woody was his main reason for signing.
While Carl Jenkinson certainly adds name value and elite experience, it is his flexibility that Bromley fans should be studying most.
I suspect Woodman will be looking to use him either as a right-sided centre-back in a three or possibly switch the system to a back four and move Danny Imray to a winger or inside forward. Whether that would be a 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 remains to be seen.
I wouldn’t be disappointed to see this kind of change of shape. I even alluded to it in my preview of the Chelsea U21 fixture earlier this week.
In that game, among the wider squad players, I felt only Omar Sowunmi and possibly Levi Amantchi gave Woodman something to think about.
Many questions remain unanswered this season, but given Bromley’s run of form in the league (no wins in five), Woodman will be hoping that the players and shape he goes with will provide an answer today.
Who he goes with for the MK Dons fixture, and the shape he uses, is open for debate, but I suspect that Corey Whitely returns to the XI, along with Michael Cheek, Danny Imray, Grant Smith, Byron Webster, and a few others.
I assume Carl Jenkinson is yet to gain international clearance, so I don’t expect him to be available for today’s game. Therefore, I assume Andy will stick with the 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 shape that his side are familiar with.
But who would you pick for this one? Did anyone do enough to turn your head on Tuesday night?
The From Bromley with Love XI
Smith
Sowunmi Webster Odutayo
Imray Thompson Charles Topalloj
Whitely
Amantchi Cheek
Please note all match photographs in this article are by Martin Greig - please follow him on Twitter here
All articles are edited by Peter Etherington you can link to him here
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