Karl Robinson praises Salford’s performance after win over former club MK Dons

Salford manager Karl Robinson praised his side’s performance as they edged a 1-0 victory over MK Dons in a closely-fought Monday night League Two encounter.

Frankie Okoronkwo’s excellent solo effort on the stroke of half-time earned Salford their first win of the campaign against a Dons side who were amongst the promotion favourites this summer.

Following a close-season squad overhaul, Robinson felt his side were starting to click.

“I thought our shape was good, I thought we were solid,” said Robinson.

“On the counter attack we showed tremendous pace and energy and it was a deserved win in my opinion.

“It was a very good MK Dons team who I am sure will find their rhythm and a side that a lot of teams at this level don’t like playing against.

“We always knew the first few games were going to be difficult and some of our players aren’t quite at the level but it’ll come.

“We’ve got some wonderful players with tremendous power and pace and I’m really happy with large parts of our game but I feel like we needed a bit more control on the game but you’re not going to get that against the quality of MK Dons.

“We’ve brought in an awful lot of players, 15 or 16 players and I think 14 players have left, so it’s been a really hard summer. Now we’ve got to find that balance and cohesiveness and be better in an awful lot of areas.”

A frustrated Mike Williamson lamented his MK Dons side’s wastefulness in front of goal, both against Salford and over the course of their season so far.

For large spells of the first half, the Dons looked more likely to score but attempts from Alex Gilbey, Aaron Nemane and Joe Tomlinson were all thwarted by Salford goalkeeper Jamie Jones.

Williamson said: “We didn’t take our opportunities and that seems to be the story. We’re very frustrated and deflated in there and it’s disappointing with the points return we’ve got so far.

“We’ve got to make sure we look at the number of chances we created because on another day we’d put two or three away and the game’s completely different and we control it.

“There has been positives from all of our defeats, that’s been the story really but we’ve got to make sure that we’re more clinical and ruthless and that we turn them into points.

“Ultimately it comes down to missed chances because if you look at our xG and the opportunities that we’ve created, I think on another day, with the quality in the squad, we could have hit the back of the net another five or six times this season.”