Assistant manager Karl Robinson says MK Dons must continue to believe they can reach the League 1 play-offs, despite their 3-1 defeat to rivals Millwall at stadiummk.
Two second half goals from Neil Harris gave the seventh-placed Lions a crucial win over the eighth-placed Dons, who had drawn level through Aaron Wilbraham after Danny Schofield's opener.
It was a game Dons boss Paul Ince had described as a six-pointer in the build-up and the defeat leaves his side just that many points behind Kenny Jackett's men, and a further two from Huddersfield in the final play-off place.
It's left the Dons with an uphill task in their final 14 games as they fight to keep their season alive, but Ince's right-hand-man Robbo insists belief must be maintained.
"As despondent as we are, we still believe we're in the shake-up, we've got to believe we can still get into these play-offs.
"This Football Club is all about being different and overcoming the odds so we've got to look at what Scunthorpe did last year and try to put a run together and go into the end of the season with some momentum.
"We had chances in the game tonight, but there is little point in creating them if you're going to continue to give silly goals away. You can't compensate for ridiculous defending and it's been the story of our season.
"For the third goal you've got someone who's five-foot-nine winning a header and then nobody stays with him and he's allowed to score. That's about desire and willingness to go and win the ball.
"For 30 minutes tonight I thought we put them under pressure and we looked the better team, but silly errors have cost us and it can't keep happening. They either need to be stamped out, or the players involved can walk out, it's as simple as that."
The Dons must now prepare for Saturday's trip to Yeovil, where Karl says they must start a consistent run of results if they want to keep their top-six hopes alive.
He said: "We've got to make sure we get a result on Saturday, then get a few people back and have a real good go at these play-offs. We're down and we're not happy, but we've got to pull our sleeves up now and have a fight for these play-offs.
"We've got a strong enough group of players and we've got Mathias Doumbe, Sean O'Hanlon, Stephen Gleeson and Sam Baldock all to come back.
"But winning one and losing one is not good enough to get us into the play-offs, we've got to put that right and get on the five or six game winning streak we need to get there."
