Heart ruled head during MK Dons' defeat to Mansfield Town

Mike Williamson said his side fell apart at crucial times during their 4-1 defeat to Mansfield Town on Saturday as their chances of automatic promotion went up in smoke.

Despite taking the lead through Max Dean’s 17th goal of the season, Dons twice conspired against themselves with shoddy defending to allow Elliot Hewitt to equalise on the half-hour before Davis Keillor-Dunn gave them the lead five minutes after the break.

Knowing they would need to beat the Stags and hope they would drop points in their remaining three games to keep Dons’ top three hopes alive, Williamson said his players began to let emotions rule their performance, and as they threw everything forward at the end, were hit twice in stoppage time.

“We all make mistakes, but we allowed emotions to cloud our judgement for the rest of the game, and we were a lot weaker for it,” said Williamson afterwards. “It's disappointing on a lot of fronts, with our performance the score line. My over-riding thoughts are to congratulate Mansfield over the course of the season, and over the course of the game.

“I thought we started really well, had a lot of control. In our overall levels though, I don't think we did enough to win the game. We're sitting here with a heavy defeat, so it sounds ludicrous, but when we analyse it, we'll be looking at reactions during certain periods.

“I can accept mistakes, but our reactions meant we handed it over a bit, without being comprehensively beaten in 60, 70 minutes.”

Dons now trail Mansfield in third by five points, meaning Nigel Clough’s side need just a point from their remaining three to secure a spot in League One next season. With a spot in the play-offs all but wrapped up though, Williamson said: “It's easy to catastrophise 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.

“The lads gave it everything, they're gutted. We've got to suffer now, but we have to make sure it doesn't last too long, we dust ourselves down on Monday, we've still got a lot to play for.”