Automatic promotion ambition is back on the cards for Dons

Houghton, who was called off the bench to play in defence in the 2-0 win over Newport County on Saturday, was one of the players to drop out of the side when Paul Tisdale made sweeping changes to his side in a bid to rediscover form.

But with three consecutive wins in the bag, and a gap opening between Dons and the rest of the chasing playo-off pack, Houghton now feels the side should be looking up the table rather than over their shoulders.

He said: “We’ve got to put a run together for the back end of the season, we have to accelerate and look forward.

“We’ve gone through that blip and hopefully the other teams around us will have theirs.

“We’ve got 12 more games to go, so we need a run to mount a serious challenge for the automatics.

“This time of year, you need to be picking up points, and that’s where we went wrong over Christmas.”

After suffering seven defeats in 10 games prior to their recent revival, Houghton has echoed the thoughts of Tisdale and Ouss Cisse, saying Dons were looking to improve the wrong areas, but believes the performance at Stadium MK on Saturday showed they have turned a corner once more.

He said: “I think we were concentrating too much on how we were playing, not grinding out wins and points.

“I think we’ve turned a corner, we weren’t amazing today but we played well in parts.

“It was really pleasing to get the win, three in a row now, off the back of two really good away performances.

“Next week there’s another home game as well so hopefully it’s the start of a run and we can kick on for the rest of the season.”