Preston North End legend sacked by League Two club after ruthless post-match rant

Preston North End legend Graham Alexander has been sacked as MK Dons manager after five months.

The 52-year-old replaced Mark Jackson in the hot seat following the club’s relegation to the fourth tier. Alexander’s assistant at Stadium MK was fellow former PNE defender Chris Lucketti. The Dons gig was Alexander’s fifth in full time management - following stints at Motherwell, Scunthorpe United, Salford City and Fleetwood Town.

But Alexander, who made 421 appearances for Preston and enjoyed a brief spell in caretaker charge of the club, has now been relieved of his role in Milton Keynes. His team were 16th in League Two and winless in their last eight league games. And after conceding two injury time goals in last weekend’s 2-2 home draw with Barrow, Alexander did not hold back in his post-match interview.

“We have unbelievable ways of shooting ourselves in the foot,” said Alexander, after the draw. “It’s a blind panic at 2-1. Blind panic. You have to see it through... you have to see it through. And it’s not the first time it’s happened. It happened in pre-season: one punch and then another one. We can’t even put the shutters up after one goal, see out a little period. My God. I don’t know what to say. If it was out of character, or I didn’t see it coming... but I can’t lie. After the first one, a part of me could see it coming.

“It has been a problem for a while and we haven't eradicated it. We've been speaking recently about how we need to get in the lead. Well we had the lead; we were 2-0 up in the 90th minute. It's our daily actions, courage, everything we do. It's not luck, we can't hope for luck to change or hope someone sprinkles magic dust over us. We have to stop believing in fairy tales. It's about what we do every day and doing it in a game. We told them not to give Barrow any encouragement.

“My God, we played straight out from the back and kicked it straight out of play. We gave it to the opposition. This isn't a bunch of kids who haven't played before. Surely we know how to see these things out. You weather that and we enter the part where it should be game done. We had opportunities to see the game out. “We're not making good decisions. We've dominated games and not won when we've not been clinical at one end - giving some ridiculous goals away.”