Neal Ardley rejected the unlucky tag after his side’s gut-wrenching stoppage-time defeat to Bury.
The Dons boss was left deflated by Danny Mayor's 94th minute winner for the relegation-haunted visitors – this after the hosts had controlled the game for the first 70 minutes, Danny Hylton going close on several occasions.
Ardley insisted this was not time for self-pity and that smash and grab raid or not Dons only had themselves to blame for a fourth defeat on the bounce.
He said: “It’s tough and some people would say we were unlucky, but I don’t like that word because at the moment it is happening too often.
“We were unlucky last week apparently and we were unlucky at Oxford, but it is not unlucky it is about not doing your jobs and not being focused.
“You know the game is about both ends of the pitch and for large parts of the match we were the better team. We were the team looking like we were going to try and win the game.
“We created chances, but didn’t take them and the longer the game goes on at 0-0 the more you start thinking things might turn against you.
“Then we didn’t take the warning signs from their first big chance when they hit the bar and then we got sucker-punched.”
Dons were caught cold in the last of four added minutes when a long through-ball sent the dangerous Mayor through to slide the winner beyond Ross Worner .
Ardley’s men were pushing for the three points at the time, but for the Dons’ boss defeat was not down to being brave, but rather individual mistakes in the build-up to the preventable killer blow.
He added: “It is individual things and stupid moments that are killing us, so I can’t come up with any excuses for it.
“Even the chances they had they were from errors. They weren’t because we were two versus two playing stupid football.
“Their goal comes from a throw-in in their right back position into the feet of someone who turns it around the corner and we don’t track the runner.
“It is not like we were tactically naïve it is individual poor play.”
