Manager Karl Robinson questioned the desire of some of his players after the 1-0 defeat to Port Vale on Good Friday.
MK Dons were in search of a sixth straight away victory at Vale Park and despite hitting the crossbar twice in the first half they were eventually beaten by a 48th minute strike from Vale striker Jordan Hugill.
The result saw the men from MK1 slip to their second defeat in six days and drop to ninth in Sky Bet League 1 and speaking to MK Dons Player after the game, Robinson revealed his disappointment in the lack of hunger from members of his team.
Speaking to MK Dons Player, the 33-year-old said: “I was quite honest with the players after the game. What we’ve done at the back end of this season has not been good enough and that’s not because of financial implications, it’s because one or two players haven’t got enough desire or want to be here.
“We can talk about money all we want but that was purely and simply, a lack of hunger and desire. They had two young boys who came on up-front and caused more problems than we did all game. That was a really poor performance.
“I thought we looked comfortable in the first half, we hit the bar twice and we missed another one-on-one. We’re not scoring goals at the moment and we’ve got a makeshift back four.
“The young players have got to learn quickly although the only real positive from the game was that we had seven academy graduates on the pitch. If I’m going to do anything at the back end of this season, I’m going to blood in these kids because I want to make sure they’re ready for forthcoming seasons.
“But this has been a poor end to the season for us considering we generally finish pretty well.”
Due to the number of injuries which have hampered his side in recent weeks, Robinson was forced to switch from his recognised 4-2-3-1 formation to a less familiar 3-2-3-2 shape on Good Friday and move Alan Smith into centre-back.
The Dons boss explained afterwards: “We thought we’d go with something a little different and try two strikers up-front. So, we went three at the back to be a little more on the front foot. We’ve got to try these things and we’ve not got many defenders here at the moment.
“But, you can play any system you want, if you don’t take your chances you’re not going to win football matches. We need to be more clinical and we need to be better in all areas of our game.”
with MK Dons Player here:Karl Robinson's interview
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