Beleaguered Forest Green boss David Horseman said “everyone has got to do better” as their poor run continued with a 2-0 defeat at MK Dons.
First-half goals from Max Dean and Jack Payne made the difference at Stadium MK to keep Rovers in the bottom two, five points from safety, following a fifth league match without a win.
They have not scored in the last three of those and Horseman knows the tide must turn if they are to avoid a second successive relegation.
“We’ll keep working with it and keep going,” he said. “That’s the only choice.
“But sometimes you have to look at winning and you have to say that me, them, everyone has got to do better.
“It hasn’t been good enough. We have got some good players in the dressing room and they do care, but it’s just not quite working at the moment.
“We’re still second from bottom and still five points cut adrift from the next team.
“For all these promising things that we see and that we work on, if you don’t execute it, it means absolutely nothing. That has been our problem since day one.”
Rovers nearly fell behind early on against their in-form hosts when Payne’s free-kick narrowly cleared the bar.
The hosts then opened the scoring as Dean controlled Joe Tomlinson’s cut-back, evaded a defender and fired a shot across Luke Daniels into the bottom corner.
Conor Grant fired wide when well-placed, but the lead was doubled when Tomlinson’s cross picked out Payne, who hit a firm strike into the back of the net.
Troy Deeney and substitute Matty Stevens missed the target with chances either side of the break and Deeney saw another late effort cleared off the line as Dons stretched their unbeaten run to six league matches.
“We had to show different sides of our character, especially in the second half,” said Dons boss Mike Williamson.
“We had to defend well and we showed we were tough to beat. The football we played was, in patches, really pleasing.
“You could see we were playing through what we were trying to achieve and you could see the patterns we’d worked on.
“First half, we got our two goals and second, maybe it was tiredness, but we got into the final third a handful of times and the quality let us down.
“Obviously, the dynamics changed in the second half where they had opportunities to take some more risks and to press us.
“It was a different puzzle and we had to find our way through. I think there were moments where another day, we could’ve got the third and that would have put it to bed.”
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