Stags’ boss Steve Evans is already making plans for next season following today's 2-2 draw with Crawley Town.
First half goals from striker Danny Rose and midfielder Ben Whiteman were cancelled out by Crawley’s Dean Cox and Jordan Roberts in an entertaining affair in West Sussex.
And after finishing the season in 12th position and missing out on a spot in the end-of-season play-offs by four points, the manager is looking forward to a meeting with chairman John Radford and chief executive Carolyn Radford in the coming days where they will discuss plans for next season.
“It’s a big week in the sense that I’m going to sit down with the chairman and the chief executive. I don’t expect that meeting to be anything other than a positive meeting," the Stags' chief said.
“I’ll sit with the chairman and the chief exec and the one thing is they’re great people, they’re 100 percent honest and I know they’ll support us in every shape and fashion that they can and I’m expecting that to be totally positive.
"The plan at this stage is the players have already had their allocated times for Wednesday and if I’m taking those meetings, every one of those players will have the right and proper football chat that they should have.
"It’s never going to be a nice day because there’s a lot of tough decisions to be made by myself and my staff."
Despite a remarkable turnaround since the former Leeds United boss took over the 17th-placed Stags in mid-November, he is now aiming to assemble a squad who are capable of challenging for automatic promotion next season.
“We need, as a football club, to put certain things in place where we’re fighting for top three as opposed to fighting for top seven.
“We’re very committed to the future, we’re very committed to going forward but I don’t want to be a manager who’s bubbling in the middle of the table trying to scrape into those play-offs, that’s just not what my agenda’s about.
“The supporters of Mansfield Town deserve to watch better players and every one of those players that’s in this football club at the minute can play really well on so many days, but you need to play really well on so many more days, and there lies the difference.
“That’s the type of players that we’re going to try and bring in to the football club, along with the best that’s here.”
Speaking to the media after today’s stalemate with Crawley, the gaffer revealed that he has already begun registering interest in players from higher divisions.
“We’ve already spoken to a number of players and a number of representatives and we’ve registered interest.
“I’ve never once spoken to one individual, to date, about money and as you can guess, League One finished last week so you can guess where those players are because I would certainly not be speaking to a player in League Two.
“We always, as a management team, have tried to make sure, when it’s right, that we recruit from above. They come from above for a reason and that’s because they’ve played there.
“I’m not talking about somebody who’s been up there for five or six games, but somebody who’s consistently played [at that level].”
Supporters can login to Stags PlayerHD to view the manager’s entire post-match interview.
