Karl Robinson felt his side let the fans down in their final home game of the 2012/13 season, as they were beaten 1-0 by League 1 strugglers Scunthorpe United.
Karl Hawley’s strike four minutes before half-time put an end to the Dons’ faint play-off hopes as they slipped seven points behind Swindon Town and the play-offs with only one game left to play.
And Dons manager Robinson admits his players fell ‘way short’ of their high standards in what he describes as an ‘unacceptable’ first 45 minutes at stadiummk this afternoon – a 45 minutes that subsequently cost his team all three points.
Speaking after the game, the Liverpudlian said: “There’s no excuses. It doesn’t matter how Swindon did in their game because that was a game we should have won and our players fell well short of our standards.
“The first 45 minutes was unacceptable and the way we started was appalling. We looked nervous, edgy and some looked like they didn’t care. That was a reality check for some of them players. I’ve just said to them in there that it’s the first time they’ve worn that new kit today and for some it will also be the last time. That was just unacceptable.
“We’ve got to look at ourselves because there’s nobody else that we can point our fingers at, it was just not good enough. Of course over the season there’s been different scenarios where we’ve lost out because we haven’t been able to play our strongest team or because of a refereeing decision but today there’s no excuses.
“Second half I thought we were alright, we completely dominated the game and probably should have got back on level terms.
“But it hurts. I felt embarrassed walking around that stadium at the end because we’ve let the fans down. The fans showed their support and passion in abundance today whereas we didn’t for the first half so we’ve got to have hard look at ourselves.”
The Dons, though, still have one more game to complete in this campaign, a tough away fixture at Stevenage next weekend, and Robinson hinted that he may make several changes to his injury-hit side.
“Stephen Gleeson is playing with an injury and both Alan Smith and George Baldock were struggling to even get on the bench. There’s also a couple of other players that maybe shouldn’t have started because of little niggles so I’ll make a decision over the course of the week as to what we do at Stevenage.”
