AFC Wimbledon boss Neal Ardley blasted his players and apologised to the travelling Dons army after a lacklustre 2-0 defeat at Northampton Town.

Goals from former Don Kaid Mohamed and Alex Nicholls gave the Cobblers their first win in five games, and drop the Dons to 17th in the League Two table.

Ardley’s men have now picked up just two points from the past four games, worrying form ahead of this weekend’s trip to York City in the first round proper of the FA Cup.

He said: “It's important for me to apologise to the travelling fans because that wasn't acceptable.

“There were so many things we did not do in the first half, it is so hard from the side to try and correct them.

“We were second to everything, out-fought, out-run, we had no quality and we didn't face adversity very well.

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“We didn’t do the basics of League Two, we didn’t pass the ball and we looked like we haven’t played together.”

He added: "I’ll take the blame for the performance like I always do, but it’s really hard when we do everything like we normally do during the week, and then they put in a performance that is bereft of everything we did in the week.

“The disappointing thing today was we lost because the opposition's mentality was better than ours.

“I have spent a lot of time this season defending my players and being philosophical about a lot of stuff that is going on, but it is really hard to take when your team turn up and don’t do anything that League Two demands, before you even talk about whether you add quality or not.

“That is really hard to accept and frustrating.”

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