Lindsey aims to build 'something special' at MK Dons

Scott LindseyImage source, Rex Features
Image caption,

Scott Lindsey has been joined in Milton Keynes by first-team coaches Jamie Day and Carl Laraman and goalkeeping coach Steve Hale

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Scott Lindsey says it is time for MK Dons to "kick forward" again as a club following his appointment as head coach.

The 52-year-old former Swindon and Crawley Town boss will take charge for the first time in Saturday's League Two trip to Bromley.

Lindsey led Crawley to promotion from the fourth tier last season, beating MK Dons 8-1 on aggregate in the play-offs on the way.

"That's gone - this is where I am now, this is my future and I want to build something really special here," he told BBC Three Counties Radio.

"What this football club wants to do is really kick forward now. I think it was important that I went to a club that wanted to do that because I want to be progressive with my career.

"I want to grow with a club, I don't want to be somebody that hops around from club to club. I felt this was a really good fit for me."

MK Dons played in the Championship in 2015-16 before dropping back to League One.

They have been relegated twice from the third tier since, bouncing straight back from their 2017-18 demotion before slipping back down again in 2023.

That relegation cost Mark Jackson his job as head coach and he was followed by Graham Alexander and Mike Williamson, who left this month to take over at Carlisle.

Lindsey is the first coaching appointment at Stadium MK since the club was taken over by a Kuwait-based consortium, headed by new chairman Fahad Al Ghanim.

There has also been a further significant change off the field with Neil Hart moving from Bolton Wanderers to be their new chief executive.

Lindsey said that last season's play-off games, which Crawley won 3-0 at home and then 5-1 in the away leg, were an illustration of the style of play MK Dons supporters could expect to see in the coming months.

"Everything seemed to fall really nicely for my team over those two games," Lindsey added.

"Sometimes we played that well during the season and didn't get the result (we deserved) but things fell kindly for us in those two games and we played so well.

"I'm hoping my team play like that every week. I want to be possession based but also really aggressive with it in terms of how we press high up the pitch, how we defend, how we recover on a turnover of possession."

He added: "We don't want a million passes at the back and get nowhere - we want to try and play through the thirds really quickly and aggressively so we can create goalscoring opportunities at the top of the pitch."