MK Dons boss Paul Tisdale reveals what went wrong for his side in defeat to Sunderland

Max Power fired the Black Cats ahead with a stunning effort from outside the area 24 minutes in, Luke O’Nien adding a second shortly after with a deft lob.

Sunderland were utterly dominant in the opening half and their lead should have been greater at the break before MK Dons made life more uncomfortable second half after halving the deficit.

Jack Ross’ side saw the game out well though, an important win following back-to-back 1-1 draws which had led to heavy criticism of the manager.

Reflecting on the defeat at the Stadium of Light, Tisdale said: “We're trying hard, maybe too hard.

"This is not the first time in the last fortnight.

“But how do you relax when it's so important. The players are together, determined, they know they're good enough, know it will fall to him soon, they know they have deserved more points recently – what else can I say?

“We're not far away. We need to make sure we don't find ourselves 2-0 down like we did. If it was a goal, we were still in it.

"There is some match-understanding and know-how we need to get better at, but we have a lot of young players out there. We're not far away.

"I'm disappointed but I'm fairly chipper about how we're doing. I know we need points, I'm not skirting that, but I'm sure it will come soon.

"We are playing well, we've finished strong in almost all of our games recently, but that second goal was the game-changer.

“Having had a good start, where we weren't at all bad in that opening 15 minutes, we conceded a good goal, but that second one five minutes later was the blow.

"As a group, we have to be wiser to those moments, and I question whether we were.

“It was such an uphill task from there and we did so well to get back into it. We had a strong finish and it could so easily have been different."