MK Dons v Sheffield Wednesday: Marvin Johnson hopeful Sheffield Wednesday’s luck on the road will turn soon

Even with no trains home to Sheffield afterwards and the game live on Sky Sports, the play-off-chasing Owls will still have even more supporters at Milton Keynes Dons than the 5,000 they took to Bolton Wanderers.

It would be nice if they could be rewarded with a first away win since February’s short trip to Doncaster Rovers, but wing-back Johnson argues their record is not a fair reflection of performances.

“When I think about the away games we have had, we’ve almost been unlucky in the majority of them,” he argues. “We’ve dropped a few more points than we should have but in terms of performance, last week at Bolton was spot on and we were unlucky to concede the late goal.

“In terms of our all-round performance, it almost felt like a home game for us.”

But the Bolton game was symptomatic of a wider problem – playing well only to concede a late set-piece goal.

“We work on it and we’ve got a saying, you will concede goals in football,” says Johnson.

“We’ve got to take the positives, the fact we’re not conceding very often in open play, it’s just we need to work a little bit more and focus more on set plays.

“Substitutions can change a lot and teams might be chasing the game and throwing extra bodies up that haven’t been there for the other 80-odd minutes. We just have to adapt.

“You get luck as well, sometimes against you.

“There’s not been that many that have been (scored) direct. A lot have been unlucky or the ball has fallen direct to a opponent.”

Johnson is likely to be a key player, just three assists short of his best tally for a season despite spending a large chunk on the left of a back three, where he had never played before.

The January signing of Jordan Storey and returns from injury of Dominic Iorfa, Lewis Gibson (out today) and Harlee Dean have freed him up to return to his best position and whilst he never complained about doing a job for the team, it looks a relief.

“It was, to be honest,” he says. “It becomes more natural.

“The effort’s still the same but there’s less responsibility than at centre-back, protecting your own goal. It’s not my strength and when I went to my natural position I felt I could help the team a lot more.

“It makes me more comfortable, I have a bit more chemistry with players, my positioning is better. When you’re more natural to the structure, things just fall into place a lot more easily.”

The teams are the last to play League One’s first round of Easter fixtures, and means the Owls have dropped out of the play-off positions while MK could be out of the top two by kick-off.

“It’s going to be no different to playing on a Tuesday or Wednesday night so our mindset should always be the same, we just need to get over the line,” insists Johnson.

“They’ve had an unbelievable season and they’re on a good run but at the same time we’ve got to focus on ourselves.”