The pair left it a few days before speaking about what happened last Saturday

Paul Warne admitted both he and MK Dons owner Fahad Al Ghanim waited a couple of days to cool off before discussing their thoughts on last Saturday’s 5-1 defeat to Reading with each other.

The head coach and the Kuwaiti owner regularly discuss games afterwards, but waited until Monday night to go through the home loss, the biggest in Warne’s tenure at Stadium MK, which leaves them 23rd in League One.

Warne felt both needed time to allow some of the more raw emotions to dissipate following the dismal performance, meaning the pair were able to have a more measured conversation.

“I took a call from the owner as I do most weeks, and he was as disappointed as I was really,” Warne said. “Luckily, we left it a couple of days, we spoke on Monday night. I appreciated that because you don’t really want to speak to the owner 20 minutes after a 5-1 home defeat.

“Both of us had the opportunity to see it back. We see a lot of things very similar but we’ve also got different opinions on different players.

“No-one wants to lose matches, and to lose the way we did was embarrassing. That’s not what we’re trying to be. We have to put on a performance to give ourselves a chance to win, and while there are no guarantees of that, we didn’t do that for long enough periods of that game.

“It’s our job to put it right for this weekend and to be competitive and push us up the league.”

By Warne’s own admission though, Dons are a long way off their early season aims of scrapping at the top of League One.

He continued: “I said at the start that anything outside the top six would be a massive disappointment, and we’re a bit off the top six at the moment.

“We’re underachieving, and I cannot disagree with that. If you told me we’d be second from bottom at this stage, I’d have thought you were crazy. But we’ve not done enough in enough games to win. In a lot of the games, we have been sufficient without being outstanding. To win at this level, we have to be more outstanding.

“I’ve lost many games as a manager, I’m not a baby about it, I know they are part and parcel of the game. I’m actually glad we didn’t play on Tuesday, I needed a bit longer to go through the grieving process of that performance. It allows us to get to later in the week and start to build for the next game. And while I’m still in charge, I look forward to those challenges.

“Comprehensive defeats are hard to take but you expect a response from the players, and I’m hoping we get one on Saturday.”