Stags’ boss Steve Evans believes a strong home crowd at Saturday's big match against Portsmouth can help his team achieve a positive result at One Call Stadium.
With two games remaining of an exciting Sky Bet League Two season, Stags occupy eighth position, one point and one place outside the play-off places.
And speaking at this morning's news conference, he said: “We have to win our individual battles all over the pitch. This is a team just packed with real quality coming to face us. It’s going to be tough for us, but we want to make sure that we play at our best.
“There will be a fantastic atmosphere for the players to go out and play and hopefully at three o’clock we get them ready to be on the front foot.
“I’ve always said we want to be in the game on 70 minutes. We want the momentum of the home support helping us to get over the line and get the three points.”
Heading into Saturday's big match, Stags' sole aim is to remain in the play-off hunt by 5pm that evening.
Heading into Saturday's big match, Stags' sole aim is to remain in the play-off hunt by 5pm that evening.
“The minimum objective is to make sure we’re fighting for something at Crawley [next Saturday] and we’d love that to be in our own hands.
“We know what we have to do. We have to get three points and hope that something goes our way to put it in to our hands.
“We need to make sure we can take it to the last day because there’s a lot of clubs with the same ambition on Saturday.
“It’s fantastic that we’ve got ourselves in the position that we’re fighting for such a prize with two games to go. We have to make sure we deliver such a performance that we make it still a prize to fight for with one game to go.
“If you say to me now though, 'we’ve got a point and others have lost', we’d take it because we’d virtually put it into our own hands if others get beat.”
Saturday’s visitors have already sealed their promotion to League One but can still win the league title and the gaffer has offered his congratulations to opposite number Paul Cook for Pompey’s excellent achievement.
“The manager’s up there with the best of them, his assistant (Leam Richardson) is up there with the best of them, the players are up there with the best of them.
“The one thing that Paul Cook does is he gets his recruitment right, both at Chesterfield and at Portsmouth.
“I was looking at some stats only the other evening and I think he’s the most successful 'stats manager' that Portsmouth’s had since the fifties and I can remember some of the successful times under Harry [Redknapp].”
Supporters can login to Stags PlayerHD to view manager Steve Evans’ full news conference. Tickets for the fixture can be purchased by Stags' fans via www.stagstickets.co.uk
