“We can’t wait for adversity to respond”: Manning reacts to Dons defeat to Shrewsbury

MK Dons cannot keep waiting to go behind before kicking into life, Liam Manning said after his side were beaten 2-1 by Shrewsbury Town on Saturday.

A frail defensive performance at Montgomery Waters Meadow saw Dons trail 2-0 at the interval, through Tom Bayliss and Jordan Shipley, before a rejuvenated side emerged for the second. Pulling one back through Zak Jules early in the second half, Dawson Devoy’s red card just before the hour mark put paid to their chances of an unlikely comeback as Dons dropped back into the bottom three as a result.

“You can't wait for adversity to respond,” said Manning afterwards. “You can't fall behind and wake up and join the party. Fortunately there's a game on Tuesday to bounce back quickly but we're all hurting. We have to respond, we can't keep talking, we have to take it into games.

“We weren't good enough defensively in the first-half, and before we even get to the tactics, we didn't show enough aggression to deal with their directness, desire to go and attack, discipline to deal with their set-pieces.

“And despite all of that, we carried a threat - we had a lot of corners and got into some dangerous areas. But at the other end of the pitch, we look so fragile.

“We go out and concede too easily. Any successful team has to be built on being hard to beat and having the right behaviours which we didn't show in the first half.

“We've done it a few times now, when we've come out and shown that in the second half but we can't keep starting games like that.

“Even on a bad day, we have to take it to the opposition, come in at 0-0 and discuss how you can make things better. We have to do better - we were nowhere near the level.”

He added: “When you're having a tough time, you want people stepping up and showing they can be trusted. We've not had consistency so far this season, so we don't yet know who can be trusted so were still searching.

“The changes made an impact, even with 10 men, we were taking the game to them. But we should have been doing that from the start. We have a lot of work to do.”

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