{"id":561117,"date":"2020-08-06T14:11:43","date_gmt":"2020-08-06T18:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=561117"},"modified":"2026-06-05T21:50:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T01:50:03","slug":"report-mk-dons-set-to-beat-ipswich-town-to-signing-of-richard-keogh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/08\/06\/report-mk-dons-set-to-beat-ipswich-town-to-signing-of-richard-keogh\/","title":{"rendered":"REPORT: MK Dons Set to Beat Ipswich Town to Signing of Richard Keogh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/24952f1e\/Russell-Martin?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Russell Martin<\/a>&#8216;s MK Dons are set to beat League One counterparts Ipswich Town to the signing of <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/d07b5d5a\/Richard-Keogh?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Richard Keogh<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2020\/aug\/06\/richard-keogh-in-line-to-join-mk-dons-10-months-after-sacking-by-derby?CMP=share_btn_tw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Guardian&#8217;s<\/a> David Hytner reports that the former Derby County captain has been impressed by the club&#8217;s vision and their direction under former Norwich City defender and Scotland international Martin, who is preparing the Dons for his first full season in management.<\/p>\n<h2>MK Dons Set to Beat Ipswich Town to Signing of Richard Keogh<\/h2>\n<h3>A Risk Worth Taking<\/h3>\n<p>Keogh has been without a club since last October when he was sacked by Championship side Derby. The Republic of Ireland international was a passenger in a car driven by then-teammate <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/7e2f45f4\/Tom-Lawrence?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tom Lawrence<\/a> which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2019\/sep\/26\/derby-county-confirm-richard-keogh-sustained-knee-injury-in-alcohol-related-incident-football\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">crashed into a lamppost following a drunken night out<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The defender suffered serious knee ligament injuries in the crash and, after the club cited gross misconduct, he was sacked too. However, his rehabilitation from those injuries is ahead of schedule, and Hytner reports that Keogh expects to be back playing by October.<\/p>\n<p>Providing that he can recover and maintain a steady level of fitness, this could prove to be a shrewd piece of business by the Dons. They are in need of defenders; <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/34623941\/Jordan-Moore-Taylor?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jordan Moore-Taylor<\/a> was <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/2020\/06\/20\/jordan-moore-taylor-and-ben-gladwin-among-nine-released-by-mk-dons\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">released<\/a> and has since <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/2020\/07\/21\/jordan-moore-taylor-forest-green-rovers-sign-defender-following-mk-dons-release\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">joined Forest Green Rovers<\/a>, Martin confirmed at the end of last season that he would be leaving playing behind to focus on managing the club, and both <a href=\"https:\/\/www.miltonkeynes.co.uk\/sport\/football\/time-ticking-mason-brittain-and-walsh-make-dons-returns-2931117\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joe Walsh and Callum Brittain are yet to agree new deals<\/a> for next season.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that MK Dons have been able to beat off a club the size of Ipswich is a credit to how much they have improved under Martin in such a short space of time. Hytner also reports that other offers were on the table for Keogh, but it is not clear who these were from.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"LqK81UiMTLZ-FYT8oEaegQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/513766756\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'LqK81UiMTLZ-FYT8oEaegQ',sig:'xUDjdRLH5yii5z-v7odZiv62VzlXSb59gLH53Qj-5SY=',w:'594px',h:'392px',items:'513766756',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russell Martin&#8216;s MK Dons are set to beat League One counterparts Ipswich Town to the signing of Richard Keogh. The Guardian&#8217;s David Hytner reports that the former Derby County captain has been impressed by the club&#8217;s vision and their direction under former Norwich City defender and Scotland international Martin, who is preparing the Dons for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1144,"featured_media":561119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,32859,34,30,28],"tags":[197,695,168,1397,188,165,3259,136],"class_list":["post-561117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-ipswich-town","category-league12","category-news","category-transfers","tag-championship","tag-derby-county","tag-efl","tag-ipswich-town","tag-league-one","tag-mk-dons","tag-russell-martin","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":670466,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561117\/revisions\/670466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}