“We have to stop believing in fairy tales”: Alexander blasts MK Dons after late goals earn Barrow a draw

An emotional Graham Alexander was furious with his players after they conspired to throw away what would have been their first win since August on Saturday against Barrow.

Leading 2-0, thanks to Max Dean’s first-half brace, heading into the third minute of six added on, Dons capitulated and conceded twice before the full-time whistle as Pete Wild’s snatched an unlikely point in their first trip to Stadium MK.

Now eight without a win in League Two, pressure continues to mount on the head coach, who won Manager of the Month for August after making a flying start to life in Milton Keynes.

But after the latest collapse from his side, Alexander held nothing back afterwards, admitting he felt, when Barrow got their first one back, he know what was coming.

“We have unbelievable ways of shooting ourselves in the foot,” he said. “It’s a blind panic at 2-1. Blind panic. You have to see it through, you have to see it through. And it’s not the first time it’s happened. It happened in pre-season, one punch and then another one. We can’t even put the shutters up after one goal, see out a little period. My god. I don’t know what to say.

“If it was out of character, or I didn’t see it coming... but I can’t lie. After the first one, a part of me could see it coming.

“It has been a problem for a while, and we haven't eradicated it. We've been speaking recently about how we need to get in the lead. Well we had the lead, we were 2-0 up in the 90th minute. It's our daily actions, courage, everything we do. It's not luck, we can't hope for luck to change or hope someone sprinkles magic dust over us. We have to stop believing in fairy tales. It's about what we do every day and doing it in a game.”

Citing issues in his side’s performance in the second-half, Alexander added: “From minute one of the second-half where there was no pressure, and we were making basic errors of judgement and bringing it on ourselves.

“We told them not to give Barrow any encouragement. My god. We played straight out from the back and kicked it straight out of play. We gave it to the opposition. This isn't a bunch of kids who haven't played before. Surely we know how to see these things out. You weather that, and we enter the part where it should be the game done. We had opportunities to see the game out.

“We're not making good decisions. We've dominated games, and not won when we've not been clinical at one end. Giving some ridiculous goals away. Today, we got the goals, but we've got an issue of giving remarkable goals away.”

He added: “We can't walk them through everything. You can't look to us for every decision you have to make on the pitch. That's not the game. We have to stand up.

“It's no good saying they have to do better after the fact, they have to do it when the pressure is on. But there shouldn't be any pressure at 2-0 up with three minutes to go.

“But we have an issue - we can't win a game of football when we 100 per cent should win.”