KARL Robinson felt Oxford United's depleted resources had finally made the difference as a flat performance led to a 1-0 defeat at Milton Keynes Dons.

While Cameron Brannagan and Shandon Baptiste returned to the squad after spending time in the treatment room, the U's were well below their best.

After being held to goalless draws in the previous two games, they again lacked a creative spark and went down to their first defeat in 19 games due to Joe Mason's 59th-minute strike.

Robinson, United's head coach, said: "Look at the players we’ve got injured.

"These have cried for three months having three players out. A lot of teams do, but we’ve got on with it.

Also read: MK Dons 1, Oxford Utd 0 - match report

"We’ve ridden difficult moments and snatched wins, it’s just caught up on us a little bit. I think you could see that in our performance.

"I thought we were off it in the final third.

"Cameron showed bits today but he wasn’t the Cameron that we knew.

"Shandon will show you bits, Matty looked a bit off it for him, we’ve had to play Tariqe every minute because we’ve not had the flexibility to rotate. But it is what it is."

He added: "They (MK Dons) will probably be singing from the rooftops and think they were good today.

"They weren’t that good, one shot on target probably for both teams and that went in."