Every word Grant McCann said on Wimbledon loss, Doncaster Rovers' goal worries and Joseph Olowu

Q: Grant, what went wrong today?

GM: "Apart from the first 20 minutes, we were very, very poor. We didn't get to grips with the game at all today. We should have been 2-0 up. I know I keep talking about it, week after week. It's two glorious opportunities that we need to take.

"Then the one mistake we make, Wimbledon punish us. I know we gave the ball away in the midfield but we should still defend the cross better. And from then on, they have a certain way of playing and a DNA and we got sucked into that. That's not what we coached to do today."

Q: Are you left scratching your head after today?

GM: "No because I know if you don't take opportunities, then teams will punish you.

"Thee one mistake we make, Wimbledon punish us. The second half I was just disappointed. I just couldn't see where a goal was coming from. We put more attacking players on. It just fizzled out for us. I can't remember too many opportunities for us second half."

Q: That's brutally honest, how much of a worry is that?

GM: "I don't think I've said we're disappointed too many times this season, but today was one aside from the first 20 minutes. There's been games where we've been good for halves or 70 minutes but today we were ok first 20 but as soon as we conceded we were way off where we know we can be.

"It's hard to pinpoint. It's not like we're telling or coaching the team to be defensive. We want the boys to take the game, individually and collectively, by the scruff of the neck. Go and be positive. We've lost two glorious opportunities to score, then we concede and you want to get back to how we know we can be but we don't. We looked rushed. But credit to Wimbledon, they worked hard and kept us honest. Their front three worked their knackers off and we didn't have the calmness to play through them today."

Q: Retrospectively, is that somewhere where you could have perhaps gone with someone like Patrick Kelly?

GM: "Possibly. But Owen and George have been in good form. Zain Westbrooke, Patrick Kelly, Ben Close - they're all good footballers. Everything is great in hindsight isn't it?"

Q: What was your message to the players after that?

GM: "Exactly the same as I'm saying to you. I was very disappointed after those first 20 minutes. We need to understand when we come to places like this that we need to be streetwise, we need to understand we're not going to get free headers, we need to tackle - we can't dangle legs. You have to put your body on the line and win headers and be strong and there was occasions today where we didn't quite do that. And Wimbledon were really good at that and it's something we need to be better at."

Q: One win in six - how do you get back on a good run?

GM: "I don't know. It's a long season and we focus game-by-game. We know we've got a good group of players and good staff. We'll not be throwing our toys out of the pram. We'll stay calm and focused."

Q: You're not showing the promotion form at the minute are you?

GM: "Yeah, but it's going to happen in a season. It's swings and roundabouts. Morecambe have shown promotion form and their manager has just won the manager of the month. So I don't really agree with those sort of comments. It's a long season. Yes of course you want good spells and at the moment we're not but we'll get that back."

Q: How's Joseph Olowu and Jamie Sterry?

GM: "With Joseph, I don't know. We'll see. I'll speak to Dave (Rennie, head of medical) after the weekend. I'm sure he'll give me a better outlook on it.

"He's been carrying a problem with his back so hopefully he's ok. It's the same with Jamie, who's carrying the same thing."

Q: No shots on target today - is that disappointing?

GM: "Of course I'm disappointed. We have 20-25 shots per game usually. If we take one of those chances early on, we win the match. But we didn't."

Q: You said there was a way to lose on Tuesday (against Port Vale) but it felt different today didn't it?

GM: "Yeah, we were nowhere near where we can be. But it was almost like we searching for something today, just scratching and hoping. On Tuesday we were in the ascendancy and creating chances. Today we weren't so it's disappointing."

Q: Did you toil with making changes at the break?

GM: "It went through my head. But you want to give them an opportunity to put the wrongs right but it just wasn't happening. To be fair, even when we made the changes (three on the hour) it didn't look much better and that's not a slant on the boys who came on. It's just the way the game went today."

Q: More often than not this season, you've bounced back from defeats haven’t you?

GM: "Yeah and that's the positive. And hopefully we can do that next week against Tranmere.

“It's a disappointing start to the Christmas period for us. There's plenty of games left for us though so we'll stay focused and calm when the outside noise is talking about different scenarios. The job is to get out of this league and it doesn't happen after 20-odd games, it happens after 46."