Paul Warne hails MK Dons finishing after rout of Gillingham

MK Dons boss Paul Warne hailed his side’s clinical edge after putting injury-ravaged Gillingham to the sword in a 5-1 drubbing.

The goals were spread around with five different scorers as captain Alex Gilbey, Gethin Jones, Marvin Ekpiteta, Ben Wiles and Liam Kelly all got in on the demolition act at Priestfield Stadium.

A convincing victory made it 12 league games without defeat for the visitors as they went four points clear of fourth place.

“There are different ways of winning games,” admitted Warne.

“Coming here midweek after the weekend we knew it would be a different sort of football match and it was. We’re just really pleased to come away with a win.

“Five different goalscorers is good. It’s been a good night for us. I’m really pleased for everybody.

“We did enough. I don’t think we had more of the ball than Gillingham first half, we just took our chances really well.

“When called upon we did enough defensively. Our centre-halves were good again. I was disappointed that we lost our clean sheet.

“My favourite goal would have been Gilbs’ when he hit the crossbar. That would have been some goal.

“I’m being greedy because we’ve probably taken 75 per cent of the chances we’ve created tonight.

“I have very high standards for Ben Wiles. He can create, he can run, he can score, he’s got real pace about him. He got us the fourth when if they scored the fourth, 3-1 away from home becomes a different challenge.”

Gareth Ainsworth is without a number of key figures at the moment and the Gills are in the midst of a rut.

This was a fourth defeat in six, in a spell where they have failed to score more than once in a game.

Worryingly for Ainsworth, his side have shipped 14 goals in their last five home games.

He said: “It wasn’t good enough. It’s just moments of bad defending, bad decisions, naivety.

“We’ve had the ball go under people’s feet. Losing control of the ball. As professional footballers you’ve got to be able to do that.

“Some of the boys didn’t handle the pressure well tonight. I showed my frustrations at half-time. The fans were showing their disgust vocally at that performance and I told them I agreed. Some of the defending was chaotic.

“I have an extremely long injury list at the moment. It’s boys who were starting. It’s crazy how it’s happening at the minute.

“I had a youth team player on for his league debut. It’s hard to take, but the ones who come in have to step up, they have to stand up for themselves and be good enough.

“I know what needs to be done here, but we’ve got to get through to the end of the season. When your best players aren’t available you struggle.”