The MK Dons head coach read his side the riot act after their first-half performance

Form on the road has been pretty good for MK Dons this season, but the opening half-an-hour against Barnet was the worst Paul Warne has seen so far.

Trailing 2-0 after 28 minutes at The Hive, Dons could have been down and out but managed to pull one back through Jack Sanders before half-time, not that it made much of a different to the head coach’s team-talk as he dug into his side.

“My opening gambit was ‘do you want to win, because if you do, here are some hard truths’ and that’s our job as coaches,” he said. “The first-half an hour was the worst away from home this season, and that’s something we have to look at.

“Last week, we went goals behind to Colchester but that was a different sort of game. Today, we lost too many duels. Take tactics out, shape out, confidence out, if you lose duels you’re in trouble. In the first-half we did.

“Sometimes you’re carrot, sometimes you’re stick, and I think I was more stick. In fairness, the reaction was really good, and the game-changers came on and had a positive effect.

“The goal didn’t change my team-talk, it didn’t change the subs or my changes, that was evident after talking to my coaches. We were fortunate to get that goal, and there was no way at half-time Barnet deserved to only be a goal up.”

Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, who scored the equaliser in the 2-2 draw after a much-improved second-half, is no stranger to Warne’s team-talks having worked together with the head coach at Derby County previously.

Speaking about the more aggressive nature of Warne’s words at the break, he said: “If he has to then he will. There’s no shying away from it, because we needed it.

“You could see the reaction in the second-half, and the gaffer had every right to do it. We reacted well and got back into the game.”