Paul Lambert took full responsibility for the heaviest defeat of his Norwich City career after a 4-0 home Carling Cup exit to MK Dons.

Lambert changed all 11 players from the weekend's Premier League draw against Stoke as City crashed out at the first hurdle to the League One leaders.

'I'll take responsibility,' he said. 'I pick the side so its my fault when we lose. I've never had a problem with those lads in the two years that I have been here. I haven't had many of these experiences but when things go wrong it's my fault.

'I'm pretty sure if you were a fan you would not be happy but if they boo we have to accept that because we never performed. They paid their money to come and watch us and we'll try and rectify it. Sometimes you learn more about yourself when you lose as a footballer and a manager.'

City's central defensive curse struck again with Dani Ayala forced off towards the end with what Lambert labelled a knee problem. Zak Whitbread returned last night from a similar injury which had kept him out of the weekend draw against the Potters.

'We need to see how bad that one is,' said the Norwich boss. 'He has hurt his knee. I think everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. On the positive side Zak came through hopefully okay. We gave him a bit of game time and Morro (Steve Morison) hopefully the same, and they don't have any reaction.'

Lambert is looking for one of the positive variety with a daunting league trip to Chelsea this Saturday.

'It is how you respond from a defeat. We had a strong side out but we got beat by a better side. Listen, they are top of their respective league on merit. We probably helped them by not getting going at all. Really, really disappointing. Credit to MK Dons they were the better side. They deserved to go through.'