Martin delighted to end frustrating away-day streak

"I'm looking forward not to having to answer that question any more!" said Russell Martin as MK Dons finally ended their 20-game winless streak away from home on Saturday.

The dismal run lasted 20 league games, stretching back to September 2019 and a game which the manger scored in away at Blackpool and a 3-0 win at Bloomfield Road. But goals from Cameron Jerome and Scott Fraser saw Dons come from behind to beat Sunderland at the Stadium of Light to secure victory again at the 21st attempt.

While the first half was frantic and saw both teams play some good attacking football, it was a different story for the visitors in the second as they spent it with their backs to the wall, defending the advantage Fraser gave them from the penalty spot barely 60 second after the restart.

The win sees Dons climb to 14th in the standings as a result, but Martin was relieved afterwards to have finally ended the away-day streak.

"I'm so proud of them," he said. "We haven't spoken about it, but they've got social media, they listen to the interviews so of course they were aware of it and it frustrated them as much as it did me, but it will be nice not to talk about it any more. And what a place to come to do it. To come back after the way we started the game, it's incredible.

"We dominated the first half, looked the most like scoring and I think they scored against the run of play which was sloppy from us. We got back in it really quickly and that was a massive help for us.

"In the second half, we got the goal and we haven't been in that position a lot, especially away from home, so we weren't quite as fluid on the ball as we have been. But what we lacked in that area, the boys gave me everything they had out of possession.

"We haven't had a lot of time to prepare, but they followed their instructions to the letter and the desire to protect the lead was incredible."

In something of an ironic twist, Dons' usual dominant possession statistic was reversed as Sunderland had 63 per cent possession during the course of the 90 minutes but came out on the wrong end of the scoreline - a feat Dons have achieved countless times this season.

Martin continued: "The difference today was having something to protect. It hasn't happened enough. Then it became a bit anxious and tense. We were playing a team who has been in really good form, their home form has been brilliant, so I get than anxiety.

"We will get to a point where we can do what we want for 90 minutes, but that will take time. When it's like that, we have to show the other side of our game. If anyone else needed convincing of how much we want to help and work for each other, that was the 45 minutes to do it in."