Pitch not perfect but not to blame either, says Manning

The pitch at Stadium MK is once again showing signs of disrupting MK Dons’ style of play.

A bug-bear for former boss Russell Martin several times last season, the pitch was re-laid last summer in a bid to alleviate the same issues this season.

However, despite a change in personnel in the ground-staff, the pitch at MK1 once again appears to be hampering Dons and how they want to play.

The balding and bobbling surface has been deteriorating noticeably since early December, and on Saturday against Lincoln, proved to be a tough surface for Dons to get the ball down and play as effectively as head coach Liam Manning would have liked. And so it proved with a below-par first half against Lincoln City on Saturday.

Manning though said he could not blame the pitch for Dons’ lacklustre showing, but admitted it is not helping them play the type of football they want.

“The pitch was really sloppy and hurts the way we want to play but that's not an excuse,” he said.

“It’s really difficult, everyone knows that. But Lincoln played good football on it so it shows it can be done. The pitch was bad at Burton too and we showed we can do it.

“It doesn't help us, but we were also sloppy too. It's then about being smart, and doing things differently. It's not ideal, but it's the same for us as it is for them.”