United boss John Sheridan spoke to us about the weekend trip to Mk Dons at his Wednesday afternoon press conference.
“This will be a really tough game because they are going along really well,” he said. “Paul Tisdale is an excellent manager, I get on well with him, and they’re a very good footballing side.
“They’re up there on merit and I think this is a good game for us because it will be a test, and it’s one I think we can face.”
Looing back to last weekend, he told us: “I said after the game that I was disappointed, because I don’t like losing, but I’ve looked at the performance again and we played well for 80 minutes.
“That first 10 minutes is where we let ourselves down, but overall we played some good stuff and created very good chances.
“We’re not hiding away from the fact that our downfall this season has been not putting those chances away. I keep saying that we should be possibly seven or eight points better off than we are now, and we would be had we taken the opportunities we’ve made.
“It’s that cutting edge and the demand from the players that they want more from each other that’s been missing. If they start to really believe in themselves they’ll beat any team in this division, I honestly think that.”
On what type of game we can expect, he said: “MK Dons like to get the ball down and move it around on what is a big pitch in a great stadium.
“We’ll see two sides who want to play football and we’re going there to hopefully get a result. We’ve watched them and they have players who suit a 3-4-3 formation.
“There are good individual players but they work well as a team and they like to attack. They’re playing with confidence, but I think we can and should go there with a really positive attitude.
“Games against the top sides are what you look forward to. In most of our games this season, with exception of possibly Macclesfield, we’ve deserved something out of every one of them.
“We could analyse it over and over, but we really have created a lot of very, very good chances. If we start to score goals, and if we find that clinical edge, we’ll be putting teams away.”
“This is an important stage of the season,” he concluded. “If you go on a run you suddenly find yourselves in a good position as you head into January.
“We need to be picking up points because we want to be around the play-off area. We’re still in the mix at the moment, but we want to be closer.
“The good thing for the group is that we know we’re a good side and we know what we need to add to our game for us to start consistently getting the results our performances deserve.”
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