Newport County travel to face MK Dons on Friday afternoon for the first of two League Two fixtures across the Easter weekend (3pm).
After five consecutive games without victory, the Exiles will be hoping to secure a first win since mid-March when they visit Stadium MK.
Opposition Focus

MK Dons have endured a difficult league campaign in 2024/25, currently sitting 19th in the table, one place below County, although with a comfortable nine-point buffer to the relegation zone.
The Dons have lost 11 of their last 15 fixtures, winning just twice in that time. They made a mixed start to the season before embarking on a fine run of results, winning six consecutive league games from the end of October to the beginning of December. Since then, they have struggled for form, winning just four times since the turn of the year.

Earlier this week, the club announced the appointment of Paul Warne as their manager. Warne, who will be in the dugout for the visit of the Exiles on Friday, becomes the third different Dons manager this season, after earlier stints by Mike Williamson and Scott Lindsey.
The Dons have described Warne’s acquisition as “a significant appointment” and a demonstration of their “unwavering ambition”. The 51-year-old was manager of Championship outfit Derby County up until February this year and has a wealth of EFL experience, winning promotion from League One on four separate occasions with Derby and Rotherham United. The Dons’ new boss also won the EFL Trophy while with the Millers.
On the pitch, former County loanee Alex Gilbey has been a bright spark in a dark season for the Buckinghamshire outfit, contributing nine league goals. Scott Hogan has also provided a valuable attacking outlet for the side since arriving in October. No Dons player has scored more goals than the former Aston Villa, Sheffield United and Brentford man’s seven since he joined the club.
Aaron Nemane has proved to be MK’s key creative outlet in 2024/25, registering nine assists from his right back position. The Manchester City youth product joined from Notts County last summer after amassing over 100 appearances for the Magpies. Former Notts teammate Daniel Crowley joined Nemane in making the switch between the two clubs in January and also has nine assists in League Two this season, with three of those coming since he departed Meadow Lane.
Club legend Dean Lewington recently announced his intention to retire from playing football at the end of this season. The 40-year-old defender has 915 appearances for the Dons since their foundation in 2004 and has started an astonishing 779 of his 789 league appearances.
Lewington has taken a step back from on-field duties this season, making only four appearances, and has spent most of his time in the dugout. He is now undertaking his coaching badges in preparation for life after playing.

Head to Head

Newport have only faced Friday’s opponents eight times in their relatively short history as a club. The first meeting between the two was an EFL League Cup fixture at Rodney Parade in August 2016, which the visitors won 2-3.
Since then, the Dons have had the upper hand in this fixture, enjoying three league wins to Newport’s two. Both sides can also boast an EFL Trophy victory over each other.
County have never won at Stadium MK, losing 2-0 on their first ever visit in February 2019 and have returned to south Wales empty-handed twice since. The most recent of those visits was a 3-0 loss in February last year. Three goals in 17 first-half minutes from Dan Kemp, Jack Payne and Alex Gilbey handed the Dons a comfortable victory.
Newport did, however, enjoy a spectacular 6-3 victory over MK in the last meeting between the two sides, at Rodney Parade in December. A pair of hattricks from Bryn Morris and Bobby Kamwa gave the Exiles a significant three points after a run of eight games without a win in all competitions.
Shared Shirts

Alex Gilbey is not the only player to have pulled on the shirts of both MK Dons and Newport County during their career.
Scott Twine spent 24 games at Rodney Parade on loan from Swindon Town during the first half of the 2020/21 season, scoring seven times, before returning to his parent club and scoring a further seven goals in the second half of the season. Twine departed Wiltshire at the end of that season to join MK Dons, for whom he scored 20 goals in 50 appearances.
His form for MK earned him a move to Burnley, where he would feature in their promotion-winning 2022/23 campaign. Twine now plys his trade for Bristol City, who he joined in the summer after a successful loan spell last season.
County fan-favourite Cameron Norman spent last season at Stadium MK. The defender made 100 competitive appearances for Newport before departing for the Dons in the summer of 2023. He turned out for them 43 times last year before making a permanent switch to Tranmere at the beginning of this season.
Exiles academy graduate Regan Poole also had a brief spell with MK Dons. The Cardiff-born defender made his Newport debut at the age of just 16 before joining Manchester United in 2015. He returned to Rodney Parade on loan in 2019, playing 26 times, before making a permanent switch from Manchester to Milton Keynes.
He featured over 50 times for the club before he was sold to Lincoln City. Poole spent two-and-a-half seasons at Sincil Bank before joining Portsmouth in the summer of 2023, winning promotion to the Championship with the south coast side in his first season.
Memorable Encounters

The last meeting between these two teams will live long in the memory of many Newport fans. A quickfire Bryn Morris brace had County 2-0 up after a quarter of an hour before Bobby Kamwa made it three in the 23rd minute.
Morris completed his hattrick from the penalty spot in the 36th minute but the Dons would pull one back through Kyle Offord in first half stoppage time to restore the deficit to three goals at the interval.
The Exiles made the perfect start to the second half when Bobby Kamwa made it 5-1 just two minutes after the restart. MK responded with goals from Joe White and Offord in the 71st and 75th minutes but Kamwa would score again five minutes later to make it 6-3 and complete a hattrick of his own.
The win was one of seven so far in 2024/25 in which Newport have scored three or more goals on their way to victory. It was also the first of two hattricks that Bobby Kamwa has netted in Amber this season, having also scored three first-half goals against Gillingham at Rodney Parade in March.
Key Facts
MK Dons have lost each of their last four matches, conceding three or more goals in three of them (2-4, 3-0, 0-3).
The Dons rank 21st in League Two for home form, having won eight, drawn four and lost nine of their 21 matches at Stadium MK this season. Only two of those wins have come since the beginning of December.
Newport have never won at Stadium MK (Played three, lost three) and have only scored once across those three visits.
Newport are winless in their last five away games, a record stretching back to the 0-3 win at Crewe in February.