Max Dean is champing at the bit to get back out on the pitch and spearhead MK Dons’ push for promotion from League Two.
The 20-year-old striker netted nine times in 22 league outings before suffering a hamstring injury in late January, just as Mike Williamson’s team were beginning to turn the screw on Mansfield, Stockport and Wrexham for the three automatic places.
But while the lay-off has been frustrating, Dean knows plenty about perseverance. His young career has already taken him through the academies of Everton and Leeds United before he jumped at the chance to play – and score – regularly at MK last season.
It makes Dean the perfect example as the EFL marks its Youth Development Week. Last season, the 72 EFL clubs handed professional debuts to 161 players and he was one of them.
Those players went on to make 911 appearances in all during 2022-23, a cumulative total of 47,698 minutes of action. The EFL really is the place where careers are born.
Max Dean has scored nine goals in 22 league goals as MK Dons push for promotion
Dean’s four goals in five outings won him the EFL Young Player of the Month for October 2023
The tight promotion race at the top of League Two, with MK Dons level on points with Wrexham and just five behind leaders Mansfield. The top three go up automatically
Mark Jackson coached Dean in the Leeds academy and then signed him for MK Dons in January 2023.
‘Straight away, I wanted to get into a first-team environment. At MK, the players they’ve had come through, the stadium, the unbelievable fans and working with Jacko again – it was a no-brainer,’ Dean tells Mail Sport.
‘He was the under-18s coach when I went in at Leeds and he went up to the 23s and took me with him. Then he took me to MK Dons.
‘The detail he went in to is really good and I owe him a lot. You can use the details but also use the passion of why we play football, playing for fun. If you get the right mix, it’s perfect.
‘But those little details, when they come off in games, it means a bit more. Maybe the fans don’t see the little details but when something you’ve worked on the training ground comes off, you feel really good.’
Jackson was fired after MK suffered relegation into League Two but Williamson, who came in from National League Gateshead last October, has helped continue Dean’s development.
After recovering from a shaky start to the season under Graham Alexander, the team is now only outside the top three by virtue of goal difference with Stockport and Wrexham glancing nervously over their shoulders.
‘Even when it wasn’t going so good at the start of the season, the bond between every player was there,’ Dean says.
Dean was enjoying a fine scoring season for Milton Keynes before a hamstring injury
The forward, 20, is hoping to get back fit and playing to power MK over the promotion line
‘There is a really good feel within the group – obviously now that we’re doing well, but even before that. We all knew we were good enough and had a good relationship off the field.
‘The gaffer and his assistants, every day, they are on with the young players to urge them to push into the team or, if you’re in the team, to stay in the team.
‘The small details they go into is incredible and it has meant so much to me to get into double figures [12 goals in all competitions] and hopefully I can push on when I’m back.’
Dean hails from Ormskirk in Lancashire and joined Everton’s academy when he was just five to begin his football journey.
‘I spent 10/11 years at Everton. I was an Everton fan, I lived 10 minutes away from Goodison and after I’d been there for six or seven years, I moved two minutes away from the training ground.
‘Everton was an unbelievable academy, we were going into Europe every three weeks or so all the way up until we were about 15, always playing in competitions.
‘You have that winning mentality there because you’re always in competitions against other teams and we had a good group at my age.
‘Every single tournament there was always us and another big name there. I remember when I was younger going to France and playing against Xavi Simons at Barcelona, we played Dortmund, PSG, it’s crazy like.
Dean came up against Xavi Simons, then at Barcelona and now at RB Leipzig on loan from PSG, when playing in international youth tournaments with Everton
‘Some we beat, some were a cricket score so you forget about it.’
Just before the Covid pandemic struck, Dean was faced with a tough choice at Everton. When he’d made a decision, the unprecedented national and international lockdowns pressed pause on football.
‘It got to scholar age at Everton and they just said they didn’t think it would work out,’ he recalls.
‘They had a few lads in the year above – like Lewis Dobbin – and they said you probably won’t get the game time you want.
‘It works both ways because you can then go somewhere to play, so I have a real respect for them for that.
‘I went on trial at Leeds just before Covid and played against Sheffield United where I missed two pens in the first half. I just thought, “I’ve got no chance here, like!”
‘I scored two in the second half and made up for it a bit. But then Covid hit.
‘It was just a waiting game, trying to stay fit at home, going on runs and that. I didn’t know when I was going back and starting.’
It was during Project Restart in the summer of 2020 that Marcelo Bielsa‘s Leeds finally got themselves back to the Premier League after 16 years away.
‘I was waiting to see if they were going up to see if I was joining a Championship team or a Premier League team.
Marcelo Bielsa and his unorthodox methods helped take Leeds back to the Premier League
The Argentine and his players lift the Championship trophy as they returned to the big time
It sparked an outpouring of joy in Leeds following the misery of Covid lockdowns in 2020
‘I really felt it in those first few days when I realised I’d joined a Premier League club.
‘Some of the players coming in and the facilities were unbelievable. That was a really nice to be part of.’
Bielsa being the control freak he is, Dean was immediately on his radar to develop and nurture even though he just played for the youth sides.
Not that anyone was exempted from the Argentine’s notorious ‘murderball’ and other intense training drills.
‘I absolutely love him. Without him and Mark Jackson, I don’t think I would have made it,’ he says.
‘It was crazy but every session was just so detailed, everything down to a ‘T’.
‘I remember one game, we played Wolves away, Bielsa pulled me to the side and I thought, “I don’t know what’s going to happen here.”
Dean is happy to credit Mark Jackson with playing a huge part in his development as a player
With Patrick Bamford and other attackers providing strong competition, Dean sought greater opportunities at MK Dons last year
‘He just said “really well done” and I thought there was going to be more but he just walked off!
‘The training was really hard under Bielsa but you could see the benefits of it for the first team and the under-23 team. We were running teams into the ground when it got to the 50th minute.’
But the promotion to the Premier League proved both a blessing and a curse.
With Patrick Bamford and others ahead of him, Dean was always up against it to play regular first-team football.
Which is why the chance to join MK Dons – and reunite with Jackson – was too good to refuse as his career launched in the EFL.
With seven games of the regular season left, they still have every chance of returning to League One automatically. Intriguingly, their run-in includes games against Stockport and Mansfield.
Little wonder their young goal-grabber is so eager to get back.
