Boss: MK Dons ‘dominated’ Portsmouth in FA Cup defeat

The MK Dons boss felt his team paid for a lack of ‘discipline and quality’ as they slipped out of the competition at the second round stage.

But Manning was adamant his team were the driving force in the game as they pushed Pompey back in search of a leveller, before falling to a 3-2 reverse.

He told the MK Dons YouTube channel: ‘I wanted to know if the lads could come in and say they’d given everything.

‘Nathan Holland looked extremely dangerous and Conor Grant had a good game.

‘There’s mixed emotions because when you look at the performance there’s so many positives to take.

‘I want the lads to play and be brave and get on the ball. It allows us to dominate as we did in the second half.

‘The initial emotion is disappointment. We wanted to win and progress, but it allows us to shift the focus back on the leg.

‘We had to take the positive aspects and build on what wasn’t so good.’

Manning acknowledged it was Pompey who were asking the questions from the game’s outset, as they created a string of early chances.

He felt his team did well to swing the pendulum the other way, but were undone by giving away cheap goals.

Manning added: ‘The lads were terrific in terms of attitude, drive and intensity right until the end and that has to be what underpins a performance.

‘Discipline and quality was what cost us ultimately but there was so many things to take out of the game.

‘Portsmouth started well for 15 minutes, but we shifted momentum back to us and we looked really dangerous on the counter-attack.

‘We shifted the momentum in the first half and looked dangerous.

‘We're of course extremely disappointed with the manner of the goals we conceded, but there were so many good aspects.

‘You can't give away cheap goals like that. It's disappointing, and it's not something we can repeatedly do but I'm taking a lot of positives into next week.’