MK Dons defender Tommy Smith said the team had a disappointing afternoon with the goal in first half stoppage time being a big part of the reason.

Smith was speaking after the Dons’ 2-1 home loss to Stockport County, and speaking after the match, the former Ipswich and Colchester defender said the team had failed to meet his high standards and that Conceding a goal in the first half is a sign of protest. An afternoon that didn’t go as planned.

He said: “In the first half in particular we didn’t reach the standards we set at the beginning of this season, but we should have drawn 1-1 and regrouped. We shouldn’t have conceded a goal like that just before half-time and that’s something we need to look at. Really disappointing. “I thought we responded very well in the second half. Obviously they had a chance as we ran well at the end, but I thought we played much better in the second half, we could have scored a goal and won the match. But overall it was a disappointing afternoon

Smith said conceding gave Stockport too much of an advantage, who were able to adapt to the match and stymie MK Dons’ efforts to get back on level terms.

“If we were 1-1 down after playing really poorly compared to the standards we set for ourselves and then regrouped and moved on, you wouldn’t have stayed in the game,” he said. At 2-1, they have something to hold on to. They changed their formation at the end of the game, added another defender, made it more difficult and we couldn’t make the breakthrough.

Looking ahead, Smith urged the Dons to pick up the pieces and get going in a busy week with Tuesday’s EFL Trophy match at Oxford and a particular focus on their upcoming Championship match against Sutton. “Obviously we want to win every game and go into every game expecting to win,” he said. Next week will be a tough game – they pose another threat to Stockport and Notts County, and it will be another game for us. If we match their physical qualities, we know we have what it takes to hurt them and we obviously have another game in midweek to look at and improve our performance.

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MK Dons head coach Graham Alexander said he felt the team lacked the necessary qualities to win their match against Stockport County.

Alexander was speaking as the Dons suffered a 2-1 defeat to Stockport, who became the first away team to win a match at mk Stadium this season. Speaking after the match, Alexander said the Dons lacked quality throughout the break, especially before the break, and admitted the team did not do enough to win.

He said: “The first half cost us dearly. There’s no intensity, no pace, no commitment to what we’ve been doing lately. We didn’t play well enough in the first half and then the game was lost.

He then added: “We can’t lie to anyone and think we deserved anything in today’s match. The way we started was very slow, we touched too much and delayed everything. We didn’t think so and that’s what you get. If you are not committed to professional football as much as you should be, you will be defeated. This is something I haven’t seen from the team so far, especially in the early part of the game. We’ve started every game well and we need to see why we didn’t today.

Alexander felt frustrated that the team had not been able to cause enough trouble for the Stockport rearguard or lean on