Martin fumes at Dons' unacceptable start against Shrewsbury

"I don't know where to start," admitted Russell Martin when he tried to dissect his side's 2-2 draw with Shrewsbury Town on Tuesday night.

Conceding early goals have been a problem all season for Dons, but they don't come much faster than Shaun Whalley's opener coming inside 30 seconds, and it set the tone for the next hour of play for the home side.

In one of the worst performances of the season, Dons were dreadful all over the pitch, and their misery compounded when Marc Pugh converted Whalley's cross four minutes after the restart. Somehow though, Dons rallied and were back in it through Carlton Morris' tap-in four minutes later, before Cameron Jerome equalised with 20 minutes to play.

Despite being the better side in the closing half-hour, Martin said conceding first again so early in proceedings is unacceptable - now the ninth league game where they have fallen behind in the first quarter of an hour.

He said: "I should feel better about a comeback and the way we finished but I don't think it makes up for how we were before that. The whole dynamic of the game, the context of the game, their mentality, our mentality changes when you concede that early. If we're going to become the team that I think we're capable of becoming, that has to stop because it hurts us so much.

"It's unacceptable. It has happened too many times, and tonight is the quickest one. It's so frustrating. I'm embarrassed by the fact we concede so early. They looked more aggressive and excited to counter, they felt we didn't recover quickly enough from that goal.

"The players know, and we know, it's not acceptable. There haven't been many games like this at home. We have to look at it and make sure it doesn't happen again.

"We didn't respond well enough – we were nowhere near where we needed to be in those first 20 minutes.

"When you concede so early, it's so difficult. When you're at home, you have a plan and then you concede and it changes the entire course of the game. It breeds anxiety because we've done it so many times. We have to look at it forensically to do something to avoid it happening again.

"When the second goal went in, I felt sick. I could see it in the players too, I thought maybe we had to write off the night, there weren't many positive to take. But I never gave up hope."

Controlling the last 30 minutes, Dons had chances to go on and win the game, with Jerome, Morris, Ben Gladwin and Scott Fraser all having sight of goal.

"They had the better of the game for sure," Martin continued. "But for the last half an hour, Shrewsbury were gone physically and mentally. We were relentless. I wouldn't call it daylight robbery, they might! They'll be disappointed we got back into it, but I'm disappointed we didn't go on to win it in the end."