A disheartened Neal Ardley accused his players of throwing in the towel during the 3-0 home defeat to Rochdale.

There was little in the game forover an hour, with Charlie Wyke missing one glorious chance to edge Dons ahead.

However, once Scott Hogan headed the first goal of a 16-minute hat-trick on 65 minutes AFC capitulated.

“Once they scored we suddenly folded, players stopped doing their jobs and there was no character and ultimately that is difficult to take,” said Ardley.

We went two versus two at the back and went very brave to try and get back in the game, but players went missing and they were shocking goals to concede – we just went to pieces.

Ardley did admit it was a result he had feared from the outset after being virtually forced by a number of injuries to abandon his favoured formation of a midfield five in favour of two wingers and two out-and-out strikers.

He added: “We had lost players and had to change the shape. I didn’t want to put square pegs in round holes, so we decided we would go all out for the game with wingers on the pitch 4-4-2 and try to attack them, but it didn’t work.

 “The fans think it's exciting but they don’t see we have not got the personnel to play it.

“We’ve had very little return throughout the season from our wide players.

“So while the fans were thinking we have too wingers and we are going to be exciting I was thinking we are going to be so exposed. I feared at half-time it could go against us and end up being anything and that is the way it has turned out.”