Preview: MK Dons (a)

The Cup’s on the backburner for now as the Owls look forward to a massive away game at stadium:mk

The FA Cup saw a weakened Wednesday side get a creditable draw at Blackpool and the carrot of an away day at Goodison Park in the 5th round but the more important business is the league with the 4th placed Owls looking to get closer to Charlton at the top and distance themselves from 5th placed MK and the chasing pack.

All stats come from Soccerbase and Soccernet

Last Away Game	Opposition	Result	Shots	On Target	Corners	Cards	Fouls	Possession
WEDNESDAY	Blackpool	D 1-1	9	6	4	2	9	42%

Last Home Game	Opposition	Result	Shots	On Target	Corners	Cards	Fouls	Possession
MK DONS	QPR	D 1-1	3	2	4	0	6	52%

The Owls put in a decent showing against higher league opposition and can consider themselves unlucky not to have advanced, Blackpool’s equaliser coming courtesy of a controversial late penalty.

This is the Dons’ first home game since FA Cup 3rd round weekend with their scheduled clash against Carlisle being postponed.

LAST 5 GAMES	Blackpool (a)	Scunthorpe (a)	Hartlepool (h)	Charlton (h)	West Ham (h)
Wednesday	D 1-1	W 1-3	D 2-2	L 0-1	W 1-0

LAST 5 GAMES	Stevenage (a)	Notts County (a)	QPR (a)	QPR (h)	Colchester (h)
MK Dons	L 4-2	D 1-1	L 1-0	D 1-1	W 1-0

The Owls go into this with only 3 wins in the previous 7 league games, the fact that most see this run as disappointing shows how far we’ve come along this season.

MK Dons aren’t in the best of form having only won 3 out of the last 6 in the league although they have only played three times in the league in 2012 to date.

HEAD 2 HEAD	WEDNESDAY WINS	MK DONS WINS	DRAWS
	2	0	3

LAST MEETING
10th September 2011, Hillsborough – Att – 16982
Wednesday 3-1 MK Dons
(G Madine 54,63, L Palmer 89)(A Balanta 77)

We have met the MK Dons plenty of times in their previous incarnation as Wimbledon but otherwise we’re not overly familiar with the Buckinghamshire team.

The most memorable clash between the two to date came in November 2010 as the Owls recorded probably their best performance of the season as they put the MK Dons away scoring 4 in the process. All that coming in the midst of financial uncertainty.

MEGSON’S MOB

We made changes for Blackpool with this game in mind.

Ahead of any new arrivals over the next couple of days, Buxton may move over to left back with Otsemobor playing on the right unless Reda Johnson returns to fitness ahead of schedule.

Mike Jones is also available for this one giving us another option in midfield and I’d expect O’Grady and Madine to return upfront in place of Morrison and Lowe.

The big news from MK Dons is their loan capture of former Leeds and Manchester United man Alan Smith on loan.

 BYWATER

	OTSEMOBOR		BATTH		R JONES		BUXTON
	J JOHNSON		LINES		SEMEDO		PALMER
			O’GRADY		MADINE

KEY PLAYERS – TOP TRUMPS

Jermaine Johnson is a player who has the ability to excite and sadly more often, an ability to frustrate. When he does have his day, he is quite simply unplayable with his sheer pace frightening even the most battle-hardened defenders in this league. More often than not, he has the ability to make the wrong decision or get himself stupidly dismissed from the field of play. Recently though he’s been playing well scoring spectacular goals against Hartlepool and Scunthorpe, JJ at his finest can give any full-back a lot to think about.

Dean Lewington has been at the MK Dons for his entire career and is the only Dons player who remains from the Wimbledon days. A left-back who has made over 400 appearances for the club, he’s also enjoying the best goal scoring season of his career with 4 goals from full-back. Capable of creating goals as well with a couple of assists to his name, he can be a threat going forward.

THE BETTING BOX:5 OF THE BEST

BET	Wednesday WIN	MK Dons WIN	DRAW	J Johnson 1st Goal	Correct Score 2-2
BEST ODDS	23/10	13/10	5/2	10/1	14/1
BOOKIES

It’s a big game and MK Dons have been made the slight favourites for this, the best price available being 13/10 at Coral. Wednesday are 23/10 with Chandlers with bet365 having the draw at 5/2

Rob Jones is a very tempting 33/1 to net the first goal with bet365 and Clinton Morrison is 12/5 at the same firm to net against a club he spent time on loan with earlier in the season.

I fancy a goalfest though given that the 5 meetings between the two sides have resulted in 19 goals, 4 or more goals at 9/4 with Betfred is an intriguing gamble.

HERE COMES D-JUDGE

A big game here and another match that one thinks will be vital come the end of the season. Neither side are in fantastic form at the moment and the Dons are more rested given their lack of involvement in the FA Cup and recent postponements.

Megson moved to rectify that by limiting the involvement of key players like Jose Semedo and Gary Madine against Blackpool. Both sides will be up for this and with the failure against Charlton, Megson will be desperate to show us Owls fans that we can mix it with the big boys.

The Dons will be buoyed by the arrival of Alan Smith but he’s had fitness problems and is far from the player he was at his peak.

VERDICT:- Heart says a win but my gut feeling is a 2-2 draw.

Danny (D-Good)
Owls Alive
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