Robinson takes it on the chin

Dons midfielder Darren Potter deflected Andy Taylor's free-kick past his own goalkeeper after just four minutes as the hosts were struck an early blow.

And Tom Bradshaw secured Walsall all three points when he struck twice in the second half to silence stadium:mk, with the hosts slipping from second to fourth in the table.

"Obviously I'm disappointed like everybody else," Robinson said. "I'm disappointed to lose anything, but to go 13 games without defeat is absolutely magnificent.

"We just weren't at the races, it's as simple as that. When you look at margins in a football match, they were certainly in this one.

"We weren't great, they were very good - I'm obviously gutted coming away from here, but we'll come back stronger.

"We don't play for 12 days, so when the Crawley games come back around we'll be fully at the races.

"We have to take our medicine sometimes and we've been beaten here, so we just have to accept that and move on.

"We'll look at it with a fine toothcomb and go over what we need to improve on for the next game.

"I'm not going to hang my football club out to dry after one bad result."

While MK Dons fell two places, Walsall climbed up three to ensure they will head into the new year in the top half of the table.

Walsall boss Dean Smith felt it could have been even better as his side missed plenty more opportunities to turn the screw on their hosts.

"I thought tactically we were outstanding," Smith said. "I was a little bit disappointed at half-time at only 1-0 because we had some really good chances to be a bit further ahead to be honest.

"We knew they were going to come out at half-time and be a threat and out keeper was forced into a couple of saves and we've got a couple of good blocks in too.

"It was an excellent performance - I can't give the players enough credit.

"We had a really good start as they were forced to come out and play and we could counter that.

"We blocked the spaces, never let them get ahead of us and it was just a very professional performance.

"I think this is just rewards for the players as we didn't deserve to get beaten 4-1 at Swindon on Friday.

"This performance and victory is no surprise to me because we are capable of that.

"We've got to make sure that we maintain this consistency because if we can do this against MK Dons we can do this against anyone."