Gillingham’s caretaker boss Richard Dobson bemoaned their poor start at MK Dons as they were left chasing a game once again.

The Gills trailed to a goal they conceded after six minutes, and despite a better second half, some sloppy defending cost them two more goals and it was an uphill task from there.

Report: MK Dons 3 Gillingham 2

Seb Palmer-Houlden got one back for the Gills on 76 minutes and plenty of other chances followed. Jonny Williams put a couple of efforts over the bar before scoring in stoppage-time, and a last-gasp corner almost led to a third goal, but it wasn’t to be as MK won it 3-2.

The Gills have conceded early goals in four of their last five games.

Dobson said: “I'm happy with the effort right to the end. We kept going, we created chances. We could have scored four or five, but the unfortunate thing is, so could they.

“We’re giving ourselves a mountain to climb in the games because we've conceded early. We've been pretty watertight over much of the period that we've been in.

“We don't want that creeping in. We don't want that laxity creeping in. That's the big learning to come [from the game]. We see through that first five minutes and then it's probably a very different game.

“Once you give the opposition a chance to hit you on the counter and to play a little bit deeper and control the game a little bit, the game runs away from you. We found that.

“All of a sudden, we're 3-0 down, and you think, ‘We probably shouldn't be 3-0 down off the back of that start of the second half’. But it can happen.

“They were clinical. They had a couple more chances, but we created chances as well. It was an open game. They were just a little bit more clinical than us.”

The first half wasn’t great from the Gills, but Dobson got his message across at the break. A better showing was undone with some poor defending.

He said: “I thought the first half we were a little bit too pedestrian with the ball. A little bit slow in the way that we played. Not purposeful enough, which I said at half-time.

“We conceded within five minutes and we gave ourselves a bit of a mountain to climb. We're playing the MK Dons game then, rather than ours. You're always worried about getting hit on the counter-attack.

“I said [to the players] we haven't been purposeful enough. I use that word a lot. We weren’t purposeful enough in our passing or in our running.

“We got caught in passing across the back and then everything was static up front. It doesn't look great. People on the ball don't have an option. You look like you're lost for ideas.

“I said to them [at the break], ‘We need more purposeful runs. We need to understand where the ball's going when it's in certain areas, which we did. All of a sudden, we looked a real threat. Movement was better. The passing was crisper. We played in much better areas in the pitch and we applied pressure.

“I want to see that Gillingham side. That's what we're capable of. I want to see more of it.

“The first 15 minutes of the second half was really good. I said to the boys, ‘that's what we are, that's what we should be’. We haven't hit those levels in over 90 minutes in recent games.

“Going behind in the last couple of games has meant we've had to chase the game rather than be in control of it.

“The response in the beginning of the second half was excellent. The disappointing thing is, in our good spell, we conceded.

“If we'd have scored then, we'd have had our tails up. It would have been a totally different game.

“Unfortunately, we've given away a really sloppy second goal when we were on top. It's given them a two-goal cushion to then be the team that can sit deep and counter-attack.

“We need to start games as we started the second half. We're almost waiting for the opposition to see what they're going to bring to the party.

“I want us to be the aggressors in the game and us to be the ones that are really putting pressure on the opposition early on.”

It’s now back-to-back losses for the Gills, and Dobson - who was taking charge after manager Gareth Ainsworth had heart surgery on Friday - added: “I’m always disappointed after a defeat. We've got to be tighter when we're on top.

“We can't go gung-ho trying to chase a game and then concede when we're right on top in the game because it was a leg up that they hadn't earned and didn't deserve at that stage.

“That was probably the most disappointing thing for me.”