Paul Warne pleased with MK Dons' result against Salford but felt performance could've been better

Paul Warne was pleased to mark his 450th game as a manager with victory against Salford but the MK Dons boss looked for better performances.

Warne spoke after the Dons managed to grind out a win over a Salford side that had also started brightly in the early stages of the League 2 season, with Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and Callum Paterson scoring the goals that did the honours.

Despite the win, Warne felt his MK Dons side didn’t play at their best, and while he praised the opposition for causing them bother, he said it gave him things to think about.

He said, “In 10-15 minutes time, it’ll probably feel great. When you’re not at your best and can win, it’s a really good sign. I just think there’s a few more gears in our team. Fair play to Salford, they made it difficult for us, got a lot of second balls, put a lot of balls in our box. I never felt massively threatened in our penalty area but they did seem to have more control in the second half than we did.

“When you’ve got a 1-0 lead, you feel a bit edgy, they have nothing to lose and have to keep attacking. It’s disappointing then we got the ball back, we never took the sting out of it or took an extra pass or anything like that.”

Warne also revealed that both Rushian Hepburn-Murphy and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing went off early with injuries, but praised the impact of his squad as a whole for getting things over the line.

He said, “We took Rush off as he felt his hamstring, which doesn’t sound good, we took Mendez-Laing off as he’s done his groin or his groin was tightening up, so we had to take him off, but in fairness, the subs went on, done well and got us 3 points. I’m really pleased with the points and they’ll feel better in about 20 minutes and great tomorrow, but that level of performance, we need to improve. It’s on me.”

Warne said he felt it was a curious game where the two sides were closely matched and accepted his side could’ve easily come away with a different result.

He said, “Weirdly, I was buzzing after the Barnet game as I thought the second half looked like my team. I just didn’t think we looked enough like my team today. I didn’t think we had enough energy and character about us. Prior to the last couple of games, I think we’d started to go in the right direction.

“Maybe the opposition have just done a really good job on us as it felt at times like both shapes just quietened each other off, if you know what I mean. There wasn’t much in either goal area. That’s probably what happens when two good teams play each other.

“I’ve seen many a Premier League game where both teams end up with nothing. Today, we were fortunate to come off with a win.”