Players must be mentally stronger when they go behind in games, says Dons keeper
The goalkeeper gave his reaction after MK Dons’ 3-0 defeat to Port Vale on Saturday
Goalkeeper Connal Trueman has called for his MK Dons team-mates to be ‘mentally stronger’ after another disappointing performance resulted in 3-0 loss to Port Vale on Saturday.
After a fairly solid opening 27 minutes, Nico Lawrence’s mistake allowed Lorent Tolaj to open the scoring at Vale Park, sparking a slump in Dons’ performance. Falling two goals behind barely five minutes after the restart when Jayden Stockley poked in the second of the day, the gig was effectively up for Ben Gladwin’s side, only for substitute Ben Garrity to hit them on the counter in the eighth minute of time added on at the end.
Keeper Trueman, who signed from Millwall on transfer deadline day, said the players are too quick to let their heads drop at the first signs of adversity and against promotion-chasing Vale, needed to show more belief in their abilities to get back into the game.
“It's a disappointing result and a day on the whole,” said Trueman. “When the first goal went in, we seemed to lose our way, and that cannot happen.
“We have to be stronger mentally, we cannot let it affect us that much. We've got to do a lot more from there. We don't want to give away silly goals, but when those things happen, we have to be able deal with things better than that.
“Nico was obviously disappointed, but everyone makes mistakes. We have to deal with those things better - not just Nico, but all of us were far from perfect. It's an accumulation of everyone needing to do better for the 90 minutes, not just isolated incidents.
“We don't respond well enough to conceding goals, that's a fair comment and that's something we have to work on. We have to be able to deal with those sorts of moments in football, and we haven't done it well enough.”