Dean Lewington: MK Dons skipper says he will know when the time is right to retire

Dean Lewington (left) will again be a key figure as Liam Manning looks to repeat last season's impressive results on the pitch

MK Dons full-back Dean Lewington says he will "know when the time is right" to bring his career to an end.

The 38-year-old began his 21st season in the English Football League in Saturday's defeat by Cambridge United.

He has now played 769 league games - just two short of making the all-time top 10 in English football.

"It's not something I really think about or worry about - I just take it game by game and see how I feel," he told BBC Three Counties Radio.

It was on Saturday, 5 April 2003 that a then 18-year-old Lewington made a brief debut as a substitute for the old Wimbledon FC in a 4-2 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday.

His first league start came seven months later in a 2-1 home victory over Bradford City and he went on to make 31 appearances in all competitions in 2003-04, a season that included his first senior goal in a 3-0 win at Reading.

The young Dean Lewington challenges West Ham's David Connolly in an early appearances for Wimbledon

The controversial re-location to Milton Keynes followed in the summer of 2004 and it has been home to Lewington ever since.

Following relegation to League Two in 2006, the 'new' Dons were promoted back to the third tier as champions two years later.

Their highpoint, though, came in 2015 when Karl Robinson led them to second place in the League One table and a place in the Championship.

It proved to be only a single-season flirtation but with Liam Manning now in charge, the Dons reached the play-offs last season before losing to Wycombe over two legs.

Lewington has long since gone past father Ray, whose clubs included Chelsea, Sheffield United and Fulham but was still in his early 30s when he played his final game in 1990.

MK Dons lost 2-1 on aggregate to Wycombe in the 2021-22 play-offs

Speaking before the game against Cambridge, he said: "At the moment I feel exactly as I did last season. I'm in a good place.

"As long as I'm of value and doing a job the gaffer wants, then I'm happy. When it starts becoming about your age than your quality, then I think there's a problem.

"As long as my quality is high enough to warrant a place in the team then I'm happy to keep going."

Last season's play-off disappointment is now behind them, and Lewington is just as excited about the start of a new campaign as any of his previous ones.

"We're looking at getting back to where we used to be as an established top 10 team, always with a chance of getting out of the league," he added.

"Last year was probably a little ahead of schedule in terms of doing that - it was quite a spectacular year really when everything seemed to work."

Much of last season's squad is still together, although midfielders Scott Twine and David Kasumu and defender Harry Darling departed for Burnley, Huddersfield and Swansea respectively.

But it has been boosted by the arrival of 13 new faces - most of them promising young talents, apart from experienced striker Will Grigg, who is back at Stadium MK at the age of 31.

"I think the stuff they are doing behind the scenes in terms of recruitment and the style they are trying to go down (on the pitch), it will be a model they are going to use of signing young players and trying to develop them," said Lewington, who has played 947 games in total in all competitions.

"It's very exciting, but just a word of caution, young players need time, they need the environment to be right for them to come in and settle and do well.

"They are young players and while we're very excited by their talent, it's not always a linear, straightforward progression - sometimes there's bumps in the road.

"We need to be there to support them throughout the season on the journey they are going to be on."

And there, in the space of a few sentences, is why Lewington remains a leading character in the ongoing MK Dons story.