Mellish’s second red card of the season will see him miss two of the remaining three games

Jon Mellish was given a stern talking to in the MK Dons dressing room after his red card put his side under pressure in the closing stages against Bromley on Saturday.

The on-loan Wigan Athletic wing-back picked up his second booking in quick succession with 22 minutes to go with Dons two goals to the good but with their backs to the wall against the league leaders.

His second red card of the season came when, having just been booked, Omar Sowunmi appeared to elbow Jack Sanders in the face, sparking a melee which Mellish got involved with.

While Sowunmi, who had earlier caught Callum Paterson with an elbow hard enough in the face to break the mask protecting his broken nose, was shown a yellow card, Mellish’s involvement meant Dons were reduced to ten men for the remainder.

Though they conceded six minutes later when Marcus Ifill pulled one back for the visitors, Dons held on but the red card put the hosts in trouble, head coach Paul Warne admitted afterwards.

“That’s the disappointment for me,” Warne said. “Jon plays with his heart on his sleeve and everyone knows that. There might have been some skullduggery going on, but he’s just been booked. I considered changing him, so it was awkward.

“I thought Jack got an elbow to the side of his head which looked bad, then there was a melee and somehow we’re the ones to come off worse. My player gets whacked and we’ve had a man sent off.

“I had a word with Jon in front of the group, we don’t want to go down to ten men unnecessarily, but you can’t get involved when you’ve just got a yellow. It’s human nature though when you see your mate get cracked, you get involved.

“It felt we were on the unlucky end of that incident.”

Digging in for the remaining time with ten men, Warne thought those who helped saw the game out fully deserved the points.

He said: “I was really proud of them, they showed more character. That was a gripe of mine last week, I just felt we were a little bit one-touch, a bit booty, we could be tidier. All the lads can go home and have a good rest.”