Repaying Manning’s faith is helping spur on Parrott at MK Dons

His performances are earning the plaudits once more, but Troy Parrott says his rediscovered form is helping him repay Liam Manning’s faith in him.

The 20-year-old Irishman scored a stunning equaliser against AFC Wimbledon on Saturday - his fourth goal in eight games for club and country and arguably was the pick of his career so far.

After overcoming his midseason wobble at Stadium MK while on loan from Tottenham Hotspur, Parrott has gone from strength-to-strength in the last couple of months, and he says that is down to the faith placed in him by Dons head coach Manning.

And after scoring the opener against Crewe Alexandra on Tuesday night before following it up with the volley against rivals AFC Wimbledon, Parrott said he is starting to repay the trust Manning put in him even during his off-colour spell.

He said: “The gaffer has shown massive faith in me, even when I was playing and not scoring, he kept giving me game time. It's nice to be able to repay him. I have a really good relationship with the manager.”

Not only was his goal in Saturday’s 1-1 draw his second in a week, but it was also the second to be teed up to him by skipper Dean Lewington.

“I had a feeling he'd put it out to me,” he said. “We have a bit of a connection like that and as soon as I saw it coming across, there was only one thing on my mind. I want to score goals, I want to be in the mixer and I hope I can keep doing that.

“It was good to get the goal, but we want to win every game so it was disappointing only to draw.

“It was a tough game for us from the start. Their fans were on our backs and they were up for it massively. But a point is not the worst thing in the world here so we'll take it and move on.

“It's hard to mentally to try and break a side down then they put that many people behind the ball, but as we've shown in recent weeks, we always believe we'll get a chance and it came, luckily enough I took it and we got a point.”