Paul Tisdale praises resolute MK Dons after win at Cambridge

Posted Sunday, October 14, 2018 by PA

Paul Tisdale praised his side’s resoluteness after MK Dons secured their third league win in a row.

Chuks Aneke’s first-half goal, after he beat Brad Halliday to a long ball, proved the winner as the Dons came away with a 1-0 success that lifted Tisdale’s side to fourth in the League Two table.

“When there’s one goal in it anything can happen,” Tisdale said. “We’ve said that once or twice already this year. It was a really tough second half but I’m delighted with the way we played.

“We didn’t want to allow them into the game at all and we did that. They gave us a really tough time in those last 30 minutes.

“The defenders were resolute. I think there was more craft to it than just throwing themselves at things. Of course there’s a moment every now and then when you have to do that but there was a real sense of discipline and focus in lots of those situations around our box.

“We try and create things (but) the assist was a clearance today. Chuks is incredibly strong and rolled his man.

“The first 20 minutes everything seemed a bit low key. There were a couple of incidents leading up to that goal, in that five minutes, that sort of sparked everybody off. It certainly sparked the whole team up. There was a bit of conflict around and then Chuks did his bit.”

Joe Dunne bemoaned a familiar story as Cambridge remained in the bottom two, having earned only one point from their last seven League Two matches.

“Another day goes by when we should have got something from the game,” Dunne said.

“I felt the manner of the goal was just awful. Unfortunately it’s cost us. I thought second half was a really good performance and unfortunately we’ve come away with nothing.

“We have a certain way of defending at that moment and we left it one-v-one at the back. Chuks has obviously got a bit more strength and Brad has to learn from that, so it’s a soft goal from our point of view.

“Offensively we did well in the second half. They had to change their system to deal with us, make the substitutions and we’ve pushed them.

“When you’re down there sometimes it’s really dire performances, the changing room’s not correct. All those things are not characteristics of us at the moment. Unfortunately today is another example of another hard luck story. It’s got to stop.”