"We're all behind the manager," says Pawlett

Peter Pawlett said the Dons squad, who have slumped to 20th in League 1 just two points above the relegation zone, are enjoying working for Neilson and cannot fault him for the way they prepare for games

Pawlett instead laid the blame at the door of the players for only winning two league games in 15.

"We're 100 per cent behind the manager here and we all enjoy working with him," he said. "It's an enjoyable experience being here, day in day out. But we know we need to perform on the pitch. He works so hard tactically, providing analysis and we cannot fault him in the way he prepares us for games, but we need to be mentally stronger as a team.

"We need to sit down together and discuss what's going on. I'm sure we'll get through it, and we've got people in that dressing room who will battle and will continue to battle.

"We're very strong in the dressing room, we're a close-knit group and we need to be as close as possible during this period. The problem is now confidence.

"We need to be men and stand up, grind results out. We're not going to be brilliant every week, but we can defend set pieces well, clear out lines, eradicate simple mistakes. Hopefully our fortunes will turn around.

"We've spoken about it many times, I've stood here any told you about it too -consistency is something we need to improve on - we need to perform week in, week out. We had a great result against Peterborough but we came up short against Oxford. We were all tired but we know we need to be more consistent and pick up more points."