John Doolan hails Accrington ‘heart’ after win at MK Dons

Accrington boss John Doolan saluted his side’s “heart, desire and belief” after a 2-1 win at MK Dons.

Having failed to win in their first six League Two matches of season, Charlie Caton’s goal from an Isaac Heath cross sealed a second straight victory.

Isaac Sinclair’s 19th-minute opener from a Tyler Walton pass gave Stanley the lead before a controversial Alex Gilbey equaliser, with the visitors adamant goalkeeper Ollie Wright was fouled shortly before the ball went in.

But the Accrington recovered to take the points and Doolan praised his players.

He said: “From start to finish, I thought we were the better team in the first half.

“We knew they would probably make changes at half-time and knew they might change shape or bring different players on to the pitch, which they did, and we just stood up to it to be honest.

“The equaliser, to come back from that and then go and get the winner, it was an outstanding performance.

“I’m so pleased for Charlie Caton. He puts the effort in every week. He’s a goal-scorer who got a load of goals for Chester City and now he’ll hopefully be on a roll.

“You have to fight like you did last week for everything and show desire, belief and everything like what they showed last week to go get the points. They showed all that today.

“We’ve got heart, desire and belief to push ourselves as far as we can.”

MK Dons have now lost three home games in a row and boss Paul Warne was disappointed with both the result and performance.

He said: “I can take unlucky results or defeats, but our performance level was substandard today.

“We had a couple of players that were performing well, but collectively we were miles off the standards we set ourselves. I didn’t see it coming. They’d been training really well this week and were really upbeat and positive, but we didn’t have any dynamic part of our play today.

“We didn’t create enough chances to win the match, which is hugely disappointing, even more so at home. We just didn’t turn up.

“That’s as far away from a team performance that I’d expect from our team and it was disappointing. I expect us to be physically strong, put crosses in, get shots and we had none of that.

“Everything what was good about them was poor about us. That’s the honest truth. It’s the worst performance I’ve witnessed from us as a group. We need to change and change quick.”