Promotion must be the goal for 2022 says Warren O’Hora

Warren O’Hora believes MK Dons should be aiming to get promoted this season

“We can go way past the glass ceiling, you never know - we might make the top two”

As MK Dons head into the second half of the season and a new calendar year, Warren O’Hora sees no reason why they cannot be aiming for a promotion push.

Liam Manning’s side will go into 2022 right in the play-off mix, enjoying a strong start to the League One season, while also in the last 16 of the Papa John’s Trophy.

O’Hora, who saw Dons go from relegation scrappers to their current state over the course of 2021, said there is no reason why the club cannot be looking towards strong second half of the season, with the lure of promotion at the end of the rainbow.

“Why not?” he said. “It’s our goal, we have the players, we know how we can play, we’ve got a beautiful stadium, the staff have been great since coming in.

“We can go way past the glass ceiling, you never know - we might make the top two.

“There are a lot of games to play, but if we can get top six, we’ll be really happy. If we can be up there at the end of February and into March, we can give it a really good go.”

On the first half of the season, he continued: “We’ve been really good, but we could do better and have some more points on the board but every team can say that. Every team will go on a run, drop some points unexpectedly and we’re not the only team to do it.

“We can only deal with the next game, and take our medicine from the last games and improve. The staff have been really good at that - we don’t get too bogged down if we lose or get too high if we win.

“If it was a school report, it would say we could do better.”

Head coach Liam Manning added: “I think what we’ve shown over the first half of the season is that we’re hard to beat. We might not have picked up all the points we wanted to, but there also aren’t any teams who I look at and think they’re better than us. I think we deserved to lose to Rotherham, but in the rest of the games I think we’re either better or level with them.

“I want to see the group progress, hitting their levels more frequently and for longer periods. We have such an exciting group of players, and they will only get better with the experience.

“I’m excited to see what they can achieve next year. We want to turn potential into consistent performances.”