Mike Williamson’s response following MK Dons’ crushing loss to Mansfield Town
In their 4-1 loss to Mansfield Town on Saturday, Mike Williamson said his team’s hopes of automatic promotion vanished as they crumbled at key moments.
Max Dean’s 17th goal of the season gave the Dons the lead, but they twice turned the tables on themselves with poor defending, letting Elliot Hewitt tie the score on the half-hour mark before Davis Keillor-Dunn gave them the lead five minutes into the second half.
Williamson stated his players started to let emotions control their playing and when they poured everything forward at the end, they were hit twice in stoppage time. The players knew they would need to beat the Stags and hope they would drop points in their remaining three games to keep Dons’ hopes of finishing in the top three alive.
“We were a lot weaker for it, but we allowed emotions to cloud our judgement for the remainder of the game,” Williamson said after the game. “We all make mistakes,” he said. The score line is disheartening on several levels, especially in light of our performance. Above all, I would like to congratulate Mansfield on their success this season and throughout the match.
“I felt we got off to a great start, with lots of control. However, I don’t think we performed well enough overall to win the game. It may sound absurd given our severe setback, but when we study it, we’ll be examining responses at particular times.
“I accept mistakes, but in 60 or 70 minutes, our reactions meant we handed it over a little bit without being completely defeated.”
With five points separating the Dons and Mansfield in third place, Nigel Clough’s team needs one more point from the final three games to guarantee a berth in League One the following year. Williamson stated, “It’s easy to catastrophize it, and to feel like it’s the end of the world, but there is still a lot of football to be played and a lot to be positive about,” despite the fact that a play-off spot was all but certain.
“The guys are devastated; they gave it their all. We still have a lot to play for, so we must make sure that our suffering doesn’t linger on too long. On Monday, we will pick ourselves up.
