Changes were not to blame for Trophy exit

Despite being without several key players for the Papa John's Trophy game with Sunderland, Louis Thompson said Dons should have coped better than the 3-0 scoreline suggests.

Falling behind to an own goal in the first half, Sunderland scored twice in the final 15 minutes to progress into the semi-finals before the sides meet again on Saturday in League One.

Though Russell Martin was unable to pick Ethan Laird, Charlie Brown, Harry Darling, Will Grigg and Zak Jules for being cup-tied, while also without David Kasumu, Jordan Houghton and Andrew Surman through injury, Thompson said Dons can have no excuses for the defeat.

"You try and find a rhythm with the guys you play with but it's not an excuse – we've all been around each other for long enough, and the players coming in were more than capable. The team that was out there had enough to go and win the game. But it's one of those things.

"We dominated large parts of the game, we had a bit of bad fortune for the goal so it put us on the back foot. But I felt like we were in it. It's a cup we wanted to do well in, only a couple of games from Wembley so it's frustrating."

With both sides having only three shots on target, Thompson said Dons have to be more ruthless when it comes to taking their chances after Sunderland scored with each of theirs.

He added: "We were in their box plenty of times today, and individually we have to take the bull by the horns and carve the chances and testing their keeper. It's frustrating when they score in the manner they do.

"We have to get a ruthless edge and we'll be tough to stop when we do that."