MK Dons Head Coach Scott Lindsey said he was encouraged by his team’s work as they beat the Arsenal U21s on penalties in the EFL Trophy.

Lindsey spoke after Tuesday night’s game at Stadium MK, in which the Dons took the lead twice through goals by Ellis Harrison only to be pegged back on the way to a 2-2 draw, before goalkeeper Craig MacGillivray saved three penalties in the shootout.

In his remarks, Lindsey said he felt there was a lot to be encouraged by as he continues to acclimatise to life with his new squad after switching from Crawley last month.

He said, “Lots to be encouraged by. I thought in terms of in-possession in the first half, we were really good, second half became really long for us as we had a lot of play without the ball, which isn’t normally us. But there’s a lot to be encouraged by. A couple of good goals from Ellis and Craig became the hero at the end, which was pleasing. He’s obviously not played a lot of football so it was nice for him to get out and have a game, and of course he became the hero at the end, which was pleasing for him.”

Lindsey said that while there has been minimal time to get his ideas across, the bedrock was there for them to build on when they get weeks without midweek games as the season develops.

He said, “The longer we have them on the training ground, we want to get to the point where you see that team playing exactly the team as a team playing on Saturday. There were moments in the game where you saw that but we’re not there yet. We’ve not had that many opportunities to coach the players because we’ve had Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday-Tuesday games thick and fast, and we’ve kind of recovered and prepared but not actually coached.

“When we get clear weeks, it’ll be good for me and my staff to get detail into every single player and when we play these games, you’ll get a squad of players who know the remit of how we play is. You saw bits of that tonight, but not enough, but it’s early. But there’s lots I’m pleased about.”

The game saw Lindsey make 11 changes from MK Dons’ previous assignment against Tranmere, and Lindsey said that with the quantity of games in a season, he would be wanting his players to be able to slot in as needed.

He said, “You build a squad because there’s 50-odd games a season and there’ll be injuries, dips in form, suspensions and you need these players to get through the season. We’ve got quite a big number here – I think there’s 37 professionals and we have to look at that and maybe think about how that looks going forward, but you need a squad to get through a season. There’s 50-odd games that come thick and fast and the conditioning needed now to play professional football is through the roof. It’s difficult to play every minute of every game, so that’s why we have a squad.”

While drawing and a penalty shootout didn’t equal the full three points as per EFL Trophy rules, Lindsey was still pleased to see it as a milestone in developing a winning mentality at the club.

He said, “A win’s a win. I don’t worry about the points, that’s a win as we got more goals than they did so it’s a win as far as I’m concerned! We have to have a winning mentality here which I’m trying to build really quickly. I want the players to feel that and I told them we won the game, well done. We have to celebrate when we win and be disappointed when we don’t.”