Williamson responds to Keane's criticism of MK Dons

Mike Williamson fired back at Roy Keane after his comments criticising MK Dons’ style of play during their defeat to Salford City on Monday night, saying the Irishman ‘wants to create controversy’.

Keane cited Dons’ slow build-up play late in the game as they chased an equaliser at the Peninsula Stadium on The Overlap podcast with Jamie Carragher and Salford City owner Gary Neville.

Hearing the comments though, Dons boss Williamson defended his side and said the former Sunderland and Ipswich Town manager has different expectations of him in his current role.

“He's paid to be opinionated, that's his job now,” said Williamson. “He's been a manager, he's had his own ways an philosophies. It's his opinion, he wants to create controversy so that's absolutely fine.

“Everyone jumps in with their opinion when things aren't going well because they don't see the rhyme and reason behind it. “But we lost the game so I don't have much of a comeback other than, on another day, we don't miss those chances playing the way we play. We had a far better xG than them but the final metric is the goal.

“When we look at it ultimately we weren't good enough so I can't stand here and defend that, we needed to be better. But we know we're on the right path, we've got stats to back everything up. Our expected position looks good but the reality is that it isn't.”

Showing more personality

One area Williamson highlighted after their defeat to Salford on Monday was what he deemed as a lack of personality shown by his side.

After the defeat in Manchester, Williamson felt ‘frustrated’ was not a strong enough word to describe the mood in the dressing room since, and that he is demanding a response from his players when they face Walsall on Saturday.

He said: “Everyone is angry. Frustration is a word that easily describes it, but it's more emotive than that. We want to put the performance and result behind them on Saturday by showing our personality and our identity.

“Watching (Monday’s game) back, you see things you miss. Of course we missed chances but we didn't have the personality that we usually play with either. We've shown the boys, we've reflected on it and we have to show an intensity to put it right.

“We'll have days like that, they're not acceptable. We know the fan deserves to see the personality, the identity, heart and desire.”