Hear from the MK Dons boss after his side climbed into second spot on Saturday

Paul Warne was quietly satisfied with his side’s performance as MK Dons saw off Harrogate 4-1 at Stadium MK on Saturday.

In front of 23,000 at MK1, the Sulphurites threatened to spoil the occasion when they took the lead after 24 minutes through Tobias Brenan’s strike, but within five minutes Dons were level through Rushian Hepburn-Murphy, and Luke Offord’s header in first-half stoppage time saw the hosts go in ahead.

Dons cruised through the second-half, with Aaron Collins and Ben Wiles added to the scoreline, to lift Warne’s side into second spot, cutting the arrears to leaders Bromley to five points after their 1-1 draw with Grimsby in the early kick-off.

With Dons still eyeing the title with 11 games to go, Warne said: “It doesn’t make a difference where you get the points from, you can never underestimate the opposition. There are so many games left, but it’s good when you come off knowing others around you haven’t won.

“We’re trying to catch Bromley, and if we can win in the week we’ll be two points behind and we’ve still got to play them. That’s what we’re trying to get.”

While Harrogate were good value for their lead after 24 minutes, Warne said he was grateful to the visitors for kicking his side into gear after a pretty lacklustre opening spell, sparking a confident hour thereafter.

“I’m glad they scored when they did, it livened it up,” he said. “We got level pretty quickly afterwards and then Offy scores from the set-piece and we can go in at half-time pleased with the scoreline but with the same message. We over-complicated things in the first-half but we came out in the second, got a couple of goals and the game was done really.

“I don’t think the scoreline flattered us but if you told me after 25 minutes we’d win 4-1 and be handsome, I’d have been surprised. Harrogate are a fit young side, they can play, move the ball really well, and they caused us loads of problems.

“Sometimes it’s easy to say we played poorly, but really, they played really well and I was expecting that. I know their position in the league is not what it should be and no doubt they will go on from here and win games. We took our chances when they came along and we did enough.

“It showed the character of our players. I tell them all the time that if they go behind, don’t worry about it, brush it off. You concede goals, you’ll be behind in games, just go and attack. Fortunately we did, we got the goals and got the 4-1 win.”