The MK Dons head coach spoke after his side progressed in the FA Cup

Paul Warne felt MK Dons’ 2-1 win over Swindon Town in the FA Cup was edgier than it needed to be despite booking their spot in Monday’s second round draw.

Early goals from Marvin Ekpiteta and Aaron Collins, both coming inside the opening 13 minutes, put Dons in pole position to progress against their League Two opponents, but Aaron Drinan’s strike in first-half stoppage time threatened to allow the visitors back into it.

While they had more of the ball, Swindon did not cause Craig MacGillivray’s goal a vast amount of trouble, with two routines saves from the keeper as close as the Robins would come to forcing extra time, while Sam Nombe missed a gilt-edged chance, as did Ekpiteta to put the game beyond doubt.

Overall though, Warne was pleased to see his side avoid the potential upset.

“I’m pleased we’ve got through,” he said. “You’ll see loads of teams lose to teams below them, there are no easy games, and it wasn’t easy today. We were the better team but that doesn’t necessarily mean you win.

“We started well, got a couple of goals and sort of went off it a bit. We didn’t move the ball as quickly as I’d like. In fairness, Swindon tweaked their formation a bit to make things harder for us, but I’d still like to see a bit more from my side. Ian’s sides always work hard to compete and are hard to play against.

“The goal before half-time changed a lot. I had a lot of plans in my head about what I was going to do, who I was going to bring on. But a plan is alright until you get punched in the face. It made us edgier, possibly.

“In the second-half, there wasn’t a great deal in the game. Because we were down to a one-goal lead, there was always a chance they could nick one from a set-piece or a counterattack, but I didn’t feel like our goal was too badly threatened.

“It’s just a shame we didn’t get a third, which at times our play deserved. We just didn’t finish those chances. So at 2-1, it felt more edgy than it probably was. Credit to Swindon, they kept on going.”

Warne continued: “I gave the lads extra days off this week so I knew there would be some rustiness but I needed to reenergise them for the games coming up. Psychologically it was good for them, technically probably not so much because we weren’t bang at it today but we did enough to go through.”