Week off had nothing to do with sluggish Dons performance, says Nicholls

Nicholls was only beaten by Reuben Reid's 79th minute, cancelling out Chuks Aneke's first half strike at Stadium MK.

After last weekend's match with Yeovil was postponed for international call-ups, Nicholls refused to blame the week off for their sluggish performance.

He said: "I don't know, I couldn't tell you. I felt we did OK today, we weren't particularly bad, we've just got to stick together. We want to be a team who blows teams away three or four nil, but today wasn't the day. I believe it is coming though.

"Sometimes we have to grind out results, but today we'll be disappointed not to take all three. They're a good team, we spoke about them, we prepared well, I thought it was a good game. We had a few good spells in the game, as they did. That's football."

Reid's penalty was virtually unstoppable - a rocket into the top corner which Nicholls admitted he couldn't get near.

"I tried to get into his head when he picked the ball up, but he kept his head and finished it well."