MK Dons were knocked out of the Carabao Cup after a 5-0 defeat by Championship outfit Watford.

Mattie Pollock, a Tom Ince hat-trick and Kwadwo Baah were the scorers for the Hornets, who advanced into Round Two and saw MK Dons knocked out of the competition in Round One for the second season in a row.

Defeat meant the Dons were unable to repeat their victory at Vicarage Road when they knocked Watford out of the Carabao Cup at the same stage of the competition two years ago.

A reshuffled Dons side that took to the field featured 8 changes to the starting line-up from defeat to Bradford City on the opening day of the season.

Watford had also opted to make changes to the side that beat Millwall on the opening day of the Championship season, and keeper Jonathan Bond made an early stop to keep out Tommy Leigh’s ambitious long-range lob.

But the second tier side largely controlled possession and began to knock on the door the longer the first half wore on.

Ince missed an early chance when he burst through and lobbed Nathan Harness, only for his shot to miss the target.

Watford then opened the scoring with 24 minutes on the clock. An Ince corner picked out captain Pollock, who saw a looping header creep over Harness and two Dons defenders on the line before arcing into the back of the net.

Tom Dele-Bashiru saw a drive kept out by Harness later in the first half after an initial shot had been blocked, but the home side moved 2-0 up in first half stoppage time.

A long pass released Ryan Andrews behind the Dons defender, and he squared for Ince, with the son of former Dons boss Paul in the right place to score a tap-in.

MK Dons made a triple change at half-time and the visitors duly began to offer more going forward, with Bond making saves to deny Joe Tomlinson and sub Stephen Wearne.

But the Dons weren’t able to find a goal back to reduce the deficit, and instead three goals in ten minutes just after the hour mark firmly took the game away from the Dons.

Watford’s third goal came in the 64th minute, as a pass from Mamadou Doumbia released Baah, and his strike from an angle went through Harness and in for 3-0.

It was quickly followed by the goal that made it 4-0, when Ince collected the loose ball and thumped a shot that Harness was again unable to prevent from going in.

A fifth then followed a few moments later, which saw Ince pick up a hat-trick when he scored the rebound after Harness could only parry Dele-Bashiru’s initial shot.

The rest of the game duly passed without much incident, with the Dons’ attention now turning to get a first competitive win of the new season on Saturday when they travel to play Colchester United in Essex.