Paul Warne praised his players for their result and performance after his MK Dons side recorded an FA Cup win over Oldham at Stadium MK.

Joe Tomlinson, Liam Kelly and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing did the honours for the Dons as they won their FA Cup Second Round tie 3-1, with the result seeing the Dons progress to Round 3 for the first time in 5 seasons.

Speaking after, Warne said his side met the challenge effectively.

He said, “I’m really pleased. We made changes today with the fixtures coming up and we need to keep changing the team as much as we can to keep it fresh and keep competitions for places, which is good. I thought everyone who played today played a really good part, so that’s good, no injuries, plenty of goalmouth action, and obviously in a typical way, we concede a goal late on to add a bit of jeopardy.

“But I thought as hard as Micky’s teams are to play against, our lads were really good today and created enough chances. I don’t think anyone could leave the ground today and think we didn’t deserve to win. I thought we were excellent. There’s some really outstanding performances.”

Warne made 4 changes to the team from the side that had played in their previous league game and the Dons boss said that he was pleased that his rotated squad were able to manage the game.

He said, “I don’t think it weakened it and obviously I made a change at half-time as Jack (Sanders) had had a little injection while Marv (Ekpiteta) had been ill, so it made sense for them to play 45 minutes each, and then I’m bringing on the likes of Nat (Mendez-Laing), Gilbs (Alex Gilbey) and Aaron (Nemane), they’re not bad subs. I feel a little like I was cheating.

“I just thought we had a lot of joy in the first-half playing with two 10s. If you went to the opposite 10, the centre-half wasn’t bouncing out to him so we got through the pitch quite well without having a great deal of cutting edge. Second half, we did have that. Some really good performances. As the game goes on, if you can add legs to your team, you’ve cracked it.”

With the Third Round draw taking place later today, Warne said that while he joked a trip to May’s FA Cup final would probably not take place, he was interested to see who they got and said he would like a team that they didn’t play regularly.

He said, “I joked about this earlier but I don’t think we’re going to Wembley. I don’t want to be the damner of dreams but don’t want to play like the old non-league days on Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday in a fixture pile-up.

“It would be nice to have a game that excited people. That could be a Sheffield United at home, a Southampton or Brighton at home, I don’t know, but all I’d like is that if we could have a home fixture against a team from a higher league, that would be exciting and could see how good we think we are and how far we are from going in the direction we want to go. A good home game would be great.”

Conversely, Warne said that he said the thought of a home tie against a team the Dons drew 0-0 with on the opening day wasn’t the most exciting, though he was happier this game was a better spectacle, and that the tie he least wanted was against another side around their level.

He said, “When we got this draw and the first draw, I thought both sets of fans felt it would be a cracker. If they came to see the 0-0 in the first game of the season, I don’t think they’d have been running to see it, though it was a much better game today. Everyone wants to see a game they don’t normally see, that’s the truth, so you want to watch your own players perform against better players and see how good our team is. I look forward to the draw. So when the worst team left gets picked at home, you can all think how I think – ‘Please, no!’ – then you can text me that you voodooed us.”