Dons manager Roberto Di Matteo is looking forward to seeing his squad on the pitch for the first time against Reading at stadiummk on Saturday.

Italian Di Matteo takes charge of the Dons for the first time in a pre-season friendly against the Royals, having been appointed Paul Ince's successor just two weeks ago.

It will be a first chance for the former Chelsea and Italy midfielder to see his new players in a match environment. But having put the squad through a demanding pre-season schedule over the last fortnight, he's not expecting the finished article just yet.

He said: "It will be interesting to see the players in action and how they behave in a competitive game.

"We're going to have some tired legs as you would expect at this time of the season.

"I'll be looking for certain things from them, but I don't expect them to come flying out just yet after the hard work we have done in the last few weeks.

"Pre-season has gone well so far, the players are working very hard which is important because we believe strongly in hard work. The players are getting used to our philosophy of training."

The Dons boss also revealed that he'll be casting his eye over a few trialists against Reading, with a view to making some additions to his relatively-light squad.

But Di Matteo says he will take his time over decisions and will only bring in players he feels can make an impact.

He said: "In pre-season games you can experiment with the team and see how they react tactically.

"At the moment, we don't have too many players because some are injured and some have left the Club so we're looking to get some more players in.

"We're looking at some different options, we have some trialists in that we're checking out but we're not going to rush into anything. I want to make sure that any player we sign has quality and is going to add something to the team.

"Reading will definitely be a good test for us because we start the season against two teams that were in the Championship last season (Leicester City and Norwich City) and, of course, Norwich are still there.

Asked if he had a starting eleven in mind for the start of the new season, Di Matteo was amusingly coy on the subject, simply retorting: "I'll probably come up with an eleven, yes."