Dons shouldn't need to concede to start playing

David Kasumu said Dons are having to work so much harder because of their poor starts to games this season.

Burton Albion opened the scoring at Stadium MK after eight minutes - the 10th time in 17 League One games Dons have conceded in the first quarter of an hour.

Russell Martin admitted his side were poor in the first half, but bounced back well in the second, earning a point via the penalty spot as Scott Fraser netted against his former club.

Burton have won just twice this season and find themselves in the relegation zone, but should have been out of sight by the break. Kasumu said Dons' performances early in games are forcing the players to work harder than they should as they chase from behind.

"When we concede, it's like we get a kick up the backside," he said. "But we shouldn't need to concede. We need to be at it from the start. We shouldn't have to concede and start chasing, it makes it so much harder. But it's then we start performing better, though it shouldn't be the case.

"When we get the first goal, we go on and win games.

"The first half was disappointing. We can't play like that and expect to win games. It's about starting brightly, which we didn't do, conceding early again. In the second half, we showed great mentality to get back in it, but we looked shaky when we equalised so we have to look at that. We have to get at our game when we get out the blocks.

"It's so frustrating, we're conceding in the first 10, 15 minutes and we're always chasing. We have to work so much harder to get back into games and go on and win it. We're giving ourselves so much to do which we don't need. We need to liven up early on.

"At half time, we discussed it and everyone knew we had to do better. We played like us in the second half, but when we scored, we had 10 minutes where we looked shaky – we should just go on and win the game. But we should be playing like that in the first half."