The Bristol Rovers head coach did not shy away from his side’s poor performance against MK Dons

Bristol Rovers boss Darrell Clarke was hugely disappointed with his side’s performance as they were hit 4-0 by MK Dons at the Memorial Stadium on Saturday.

An Alfie Kilgour own goal saw the hosts trail after just seven minutes, before late goals from Laurence Maguire, Alex Gilbey and Rushian Hepburn-Murphy completed the rout for Paul Warne’s side.

With it being a second consecutive defeat for the Gas, having lost to Walsall a week prior, Clarke admitted his side’s performance was distinctly lacking in almost all areas.

“You don’t need me to stand here and say that that’s not good enough,” he said afterwards. “We know that. We’ve got to know that. We’ve got to understand that as a group. We gave really cheap goals away today, and we were nowhere near it with the ball if I’m honest with you.

“You either go away and blame things and blame this and that. The fact of the matter is, we’ve been awful today. With that, there has to be a reaction, and you get that by getting back on the grass as quickly as we can, ready to react again.

“Not a lot to say on it, a performance way below our standards, but I also won’t let it derail the base that we built. These things can happen sometimes at this level. At any level. We have to take our medicine and then we have to get back to work.

“Let’s not paper over the fact that it is a bad day for us. Not trying to brush anything under the carpet. It’s a bad day, but it’s about reaction. It’s about not becoming victims.