Paul Warne said he is pleased to see MK Dons are making progress ahead of the opening of the new season despite a late loss to Peterborough.

The Dons’ Head Coach spoke after his side’s sole home friendly ahead of the 2025/26 season ended in defeat, with MK Dons conceding two goals late on to lose 2-1 at home to Peterborough United.

Reflecting after the game, Warne said he felt the team is making decent progress ahead of the season opener against Oldham Athletic on August 2nd.

He said, “I am disappointed to lose but it isn’t about that for me. I could lose all the pre-season games – it’s all about what we do next Saturday. It was just good to see for large parts of the game, the lads get the press right, the boring stuff about defending throw-ins right and I thought we had a real vibrancy to ourselves when we were playing forwards.

“I really liked and enjoyed it. I think as each week goes by, the lads are getting more like a team I want to manage.”

Speaking further on the team’s work, he said that the team is getting closer to the blueprint of how he wants them to play ahead of the season opener.

He said, “There’s times where we’re nearly perfect, but then the last pass is just a bit behind or the shot is just a bit off-target. It just looked a bit more polished tonight as we get a little bit closer and that’s really what we want.”

One concern for Warne came in defence. With Nathan Thompson, Jack Sanders and Laurence Maguire all absent through injury, a further defensive injury came up when Sam Sherring was substituted during the first half after pulling up with an injury. Warne said he was sympathetic for Sherring and hoped it wouldn’t be a severe absence.

He said, “It’s always disappointing for the players if they get injured this late in pre-season. We had good news about Nathan – he’s only out for a couple of weeks. But I think as a player with my player’s head on and I was playing or starting tonight, I’d want to give a good performance to get a chance to play again on Saturday and a good chance to play again next week, however that looks.

“For anyone to get injured this late is hard to take because you’ve done all the hard work, although at least he’s got all that in the tank with the hard running. It is a tough pill for him and hopefully it might not be too severe, but my gut feeling for him is disappointment.”

Looking ahead to the season, Warne said he was happy with the balance and preparedness of his squad overall, but felt they could still use some reinforcements.

He said, “I’m pretty pleased with where we’re at. I still think we definitely need another couple of bodies in which I’ll endeavour to try and do, but if we go into the game next week with the group we’ve got, I’ll be really pleased. They’ve got the messaging really well and have been coached really well.

“I think we’ve got enough to attack League 2 but you always want more. That’s the joy of being a manager and if I can strengthen that, I will.”