MK Dons manager Karl Robinson spoke to BBC Three Counties Radio and his club's official website after his side's 1-1 League One draw against Carlisle at Brunton Park, Robinson saying the Dons played some fantastic football in the first-half:
“I thought in the first 45 minutes we were sensational, very classy and very dominant and played some fantastic football, even though they had a lot of the ball in the second-half you are not going to come to Carlisle and have it all easy. I thought we rode the storm very well, they hit the bar and then we had a chance missed by Ryan Lowe and we had Mathias Kouo-Doumbe’s header and it just didn’t go in.
“I don’t think they had any great gilt-edged chances and then towards the end the guy (Sean O'Hanlon) just climbed all over (Chris) Lines, it drops to someone (Mark Beck) who is more aware than our players and he puts it in the goal. They will probably say it was an even game in the first-half and they were better second-half, but in the first-half we should have been out of sight the way we played at 2-0 or 3-0 up as you know away from home the opposition is going to have the ascendency late on.
“That is the frustrating thing about it at the moment, when we are playing well we are not putting teams to the sword. But, I don’t think you can question the effort and we are a long way away from putting our best team on the pitch in relation to the squad, you are talking a team here today in which we didn’t have one winger apart from (Daniel) Powell who wasn’t even fit to get on the bench but we put him on in the last 20 minutes.
“So, it was a bit disappointing that we can’t always field a team that we feel we can bring on substitutes that can make a big difference. But, I think everyone in our team has done really, really well over the past few weeks, I thought the way the players have adapted have been very, very good but the results won’t reflect that for obvious reasons.
“I thought we deserved more out of the Doncaster game and we deserved more out of this game and arguably out of the Barnsley game where a draw would have been an even result. We are not getting the rub of the green, we didn’t play our football as well as we can do in the second-half, we played a little long and we played a little more into their hands and then it became a little more difficult for us."
“I think it is hard really to pick a bad player out of our performance today, I thought we did really, really well, there is not one player that shirked the responsibility and it just disappointing that we have only got a point. But, it is where we are at the moment, things don’t seem to be going our way and people need to realise that, it is just not dropping for us.
“We just need to keep working hard and keep doing the right things and not get too despondent and therefore we can move forwards. We don’t want the season to peter out, which people might think it will at this moment in time but we have got an awful lot of games still to play. We have fallen out of the top half of the table, so we are underachieving and we have got to pull our sleeves up and take the positives out of today and hopefully get the points that our play deserve.
“David Martin’s injury is just the story of the season really isn’t it, I know they had a player (Danny Livesey) with a head injury but you are talking Dave Martin who would be a big, big miss to us. Although Ian McLoughlin did well coming on cold I thought leading up to their goal he could have been a little bit more on the front foot and then we wouldn’t have conceded the corner, but you are always going to get that with young goalkeepers. Then also as well to lose Gary MacKenzie in the latter part of the game was a big loss to us as well.
“So, they are things that just aren’t going for us but we have got to keep looking forward, we have got to keep being positive, we have got to keep keeping our feet firmly on the ground and be realistic about where we are. I have got to patch teams together, I have not played the strongest team twice this season, or a team twice and that is it.
“But, that is the past, this is the future and I can only work with the players and I think the attitude of the players today, the fans were brilliant who came here, I heard them all game so thank you to them for coming and I am sorry we couldn’t send them home with the three points, but I don’t think it was a performance that only deserved a point personally. We have just been dealt very hard cards and we have got to make sure that we play them in the best way possible, and we will try to do that.”