Dean Brennan hails ‘ruthless’ Barnet after ending MK Dons’ impressive run

Dean Brennan felt his Barnet side fully deserved the points as they ended MK Dons’ long unbeaten run with a 3-1 win at Stadium MK.

Jon Mellish’s early opener for the Dons was cancelled out by a Danny Collinge header in first-half stoppage time.

Kabongo Tshimanga scored a deflected effort in the early stages of the second half to put the Bees in front against his former club and Idris Kanu added a third in the 57th minute.

Cieran Slicker saved a Rushian Hepburn-Murphy penalty as MK Dons suffered a first league defeat since New Year’s Day.

Brennan was delighted with his side’s work-rate as they won for the first time in four games, and said: “I thought it was a fully deserved victory.

“We played on the front foot, went after the opposition and stopped their technical players playing.

“We kept going, kept pushing, didn’t sulk, didn’t drop our heads and at half-time I just spoke to the players about believing.

“We were ruthless at the top end of the pitch. We even had more chances to score as well.

“I’ve said to the players all season that they’ve got to believe more and, realistically, we haven’t scored enough goals this season to put us in the automatic race but we’ve done OK defensively, and if we can score more goals in the remaining games, we give ourselves a fighting chance to get in the play-offs.”

MK Dons boss Paul Warne felt it was a close game in which things just did not go in his side’s favour.

He said: “It never felt like we had enough of the game to get anything out of it. I don’t think we were a 3-1 defeat or really poor but we let ourselves down on the duels.

“Actual goalmouth action, I thought it was an even game. Maybe a draw would have been a fairer outcome, but our finishing just wasn’t as clinical as theirs.

“We had an opportunity in a five to 10-minute spell where we were really good and looked more like us. We got the penalty but didn’t take it and I do feel like that’s an emotional swing.

“I know the scoreline hasn’t changed and there’s still half-an-hour on the clock, but you feel like if it goes in, here you go – the place gets loud. It sort of drained the lads a little bit.”