‘I’m not right here to play League Two soccer’: Callum Paterson reveals the secrets and techniques of MK Dons’ revival below Paul Warne – and why the supervisor’s post-training runs are serving to their title combat

When Paul Warne walked through the doors at MK Dons in mid-April, he took over a club staring at the abyss.

Sitting precariously in 19th in League Two, the Dons had endured a hugely disappointing campaign under Mike Williamson and then Scott Lindsey, and faced the unthinkable prospect of dropping out of the Football League for the first time since their formation in 2004. Lindsey, poached from League One Crawley Town just months earlier, had presided over a run of 11 losses in 16 games. 

It was a season which few predicted. A little under a year before Warne’s arrival, the Dons finished fourth in League Two, before a 5-1 home drubbing by Lindsey’s Crawley sent them crashing out of the play-offs. The club evidently struggled to recover from such a resounding defeat and Lindsey could not transfer his magic touch. 

But the appointment of Warne was an ambitious one. This was a manager who’d been at Championship side Derby County only two months earlier, with four Football League promotions to his name. Under his guidance, the Dons tightened up and avoided the drop, with four clean sheets from four to finish the campaign. It was a sign of things to come.

Now, sitting fifth in League Two and six points off the top, there’s only one ambition for MK Dons – to win the title. 

‘I think we’ve actually underperformed,’ says striker Callum Paterson, a former Scotland international who joined from Sheffield Wednesday in the summer. ‘All the boys are on the same wavelength as me, but to be sitting where we are in the league is good. 

‘There’s a lot of room for improvement and the aim is to win the league, to get this club back to where it deserves to be.’ 

Paterson has been a crucial part of the Dons’ success story so far this season, scoring five and assisting five on a run which has seen the club lose just two games since mid-September. 

‘It’s been a good start,’ he says of his first few months in Milton Keynes. ‘To go from Sheffield Wednesday, where I wasn’t playing much the last couple of years, to somewhere I’m more appreciated and valued has been good. It’s nice to bring the family down here.’ 

Paterson netted 31 goals in 186 appearances for the Owls but fell out of favour under Danny Rohl, whom he admits he ‘didn’t get on with’ last season. The 31-year-old left the club with offers from the Championship, League One and abroad on the table, which he rejected to make the move south to Milton Keynes. 

The reason for his decision? A convincing coffee with Warne last summer.

‘It was turbulent with the goings-on behind the scenes (at Wednesday) but it was more like, I didn’t get on with the manager, he didn’t value me or appreciate me or have time for anything I wanted to get across. 

‘It was Paul who brought me here. I met him for a coffee in Costa in the off-season and he convinced me to sign.

‘I couldn’t see anyone else giving me that sort of spiel, he was really good at getting his points across. 

‘He told me the aim is to get promoted and win the league and asked if I want to be a part of that journey. Obviously I do. I’ve been promoted from the Championship and League One so it’s time to make it a hat-trick. League One and beyond… I didn’t come here to play League Two football.’

Warne was backed with 10 new recruits in the summer, many of whom boast League One, Championship and even Premier League experience.

Striker Aaron Collins was poached after an impressive stint at Bolton, midfielder Will Collar from high-flying Stockport, while top scorer Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, who played in the top flight for Cardiff, was convinced to make the step down from Derby.

The new additions settled in seamlessly, with the Dons unbeaten in their first five league games. In particular, a thumping 5-0 victory over Cheltenham Town in August laid down a marker. 

A minor blip saw Warne’s side suffer consecutive home losses to Walsall, Grimsby Town and Accrington Stanley but they soon recovered and lost just one league game across October and November.

The confidence and belief in the Dons camp is sky-high. Only this week midfielder Liam Kelly even claimed that most sides in League One would be envious of the club’s strength in depth.

Yet the new recruits put their form down to the work of Warne, who Paterson says treats his players ‘like humans’ rather than commodities.

The 52-year-old former Derby and Rotherham boss runs from the club’s training centre to Stadium MK after every session, just to prove that he’s not a hypocrite for making his squad do the hard yards. 

‘He treats us like humans and we’re all on a level playing field,’ Paterson adds, in a seemingly pointed message to his former manager in Sheffield. ‘The manager isn’t on a pedestal, the staff aren’t above the players or a different entity. 

‘We’re all sort of one team. The way that he speaks to us is like he’s one of our team-mates and we can speak to him back. He’s approachable and will take in whatever you suggest.’ 

Warne’s Dons are a far more direct, but effective, side than they were last term under Williamson and Lindsey. The 231 successful passes per 90 they average is over 200 fewer than last season and their possession stats have dropped by some 10 percentage points from the 59 per cent they boasted in 2024-25.

The change in style suits Warne’s preferred front two of Mendez-Laing and Paterson down to a tee. It’s little surprise that with that duo up top, who played together in the Premier League for Cardiff, the Dons have scored more League Two goals (37) than anyone.

‘We have a great partnership,’ Paterson says. ‘He’s been at three of the four clubs I’ve played for in my career, so it made the move here more appealing for sure. 

‘Being a nine or a 10 in this team, you’re a focal point of Warne’s philosophy – getting the ball in the box and creating opportunities for the strikers. On a personal note, I’m not far off 100 career goals now, which has been an aim for me for a while. So that’s the goal now.’

In a game which Warne felt his side were unlucky to lose, the Dons missed a golden opportunity to go top of the table on Tuesday night at Notts County. 

The defeat comes at a tricky time, given the daunting fixture list that the Dons face before the end of the year, in which they will play three of the top six.

Yet it’s a challenge which the club’s ambitious new cohort plan to tackle head first. After all, these are the games which will determine their fate come the start of May.

‘We’ve got plenty of ways of playing and we need to turn it up a notch,’ Paterson insists. 

‘We need to put a marker down and let everyone know that we’re not here to play things safe.’