David Martin was pleased with the way he and his teammates dealt with the occasion at stadiummk on Tuesday night.
Martin and co ran-out 3-0 winners over Northampton Town in their Emirates FA Cup third-round replay, to set up a mouth-watering clash with reigning Premier League champions Chelsea at stadiummk next weekend.
“It’s really pleasing to get through with a convincing 3-0 win in the end,” Martin told MK Dons PlayerHD.
“We were sloppy at times and against Championship teams, you normally get punished but they didn’t take advantages of their chances. It was hard to break them down as well because they were sitting back - we needed to go through the lines a bit more and we did that.
“All the back four did a really good job. Against teams like Northampton, in a derby game, you have to be organised because if you switch off then it can cost you. If they’d have gone a goal up it would have been a very difficult night for us because they would have just sat back deeper.”
“It’s really pleasing to get through with a convincing 3-0 win in the end,” Martin told MK Dons PlayerHD.
“We were sloppy at times and against Championship teams, you normally get punished but they didn’t take advantages of their chances. It was hard to break them down as well because they were sitting back - we needed to go through the lines a bit more and we did that.
“All the back four did a really good job. Against teams like Northampton, in a derby game, you have to be organised because if you switch off then it can cost you. If they’d have gone a goal up it would have been a very difficult night for us because they would have just sat back deeper.”
“I did have a bit of a panic when I saw the linesman running back up the line and I thought the referee was pointing back to the centre rather than for a free-kick. There was no doubt in my mind that it was a free-kick.”
“The ball was put right underneath the crossbar, I’ve caught the ball, their player was backing into me and I had nowhere to go. They wanted a goal but, for me, it was stone-wall free-kick.
One talking point from the game occurred just a minute before the Dons opened the scoring, when the assistant referee appeared to signal for a goal despite David Martin being pushed across the goal-line with the ball.
“They are games you want to be a part of. You want to be on a stage where you’re playing a team like Chelsea. All we can do is enjoy it because these times don’t come around often."
Tuesday’s victory secures the Dons an exciting fourth-round tie at home to Chelsea – a match which Martin will look forward to after Saturday’s important Sky Bet Championship clash with Bolton Wanderers.
