Milton Keynes Dons v Bradford City: No excuses as Bantams get feel for new-look sides
On paper, Bradford City face their toughest game of the League Two season first but manager Graham Alexander will not tolerate excuses about going into the unknown – or anything else for that matter.
Milton Keynes Dons were the highest-placed team not to go up last season, and host the Bantams in a 3pm game which, like all this weekend's in the Football League, will be live on Sky Sports.
The Dons have added 11 players since but having briefly done the job in 2023, Alexander knows how their managers are expected to play and Mike Williamson has picked it up since replacing him in October.
But he admits the big turnovers of squads in the fourth tier makes for an uncertain early season.
"The opening 10 games can throw up anything," he said.
“There won’t be a club in this division that hasn’t got ambitions. Even teams that have just come up will be thinking, ‘Can we get into the play-offs?’
“The turnover of players does help that when you can just completely revamp your squad.
“But 85 per cent of our game is about us and we’ll stay the same week in, week out (in approach).
"We have to play our way. We’ve got good ball players who can hurt teams as well and that’s what we’ve stressed a lot."
Changes behind the scenes this summer have been about taking away excuses.
"We had to make some tough decisions but ones we felt were needed professionally," said Alexander. "This club has been at this level for too long but you have to earn it (promotion).
"Games are won on the pitch so all we've wanted to do is prepare the players in the best way possible to go out there with no excuse not to perform at their best."