Stags’ boss Steve Evans said he was pleased with how his side controlled the game during today’s 1-0 win away to Blackpool and prevented them from creating a clear-cut opportunity.
Striker Matt Green scored his second goal in three days to secure three away points for the Stags to cap off a hard-fought team display in the North West.
And the manager said he was glad with the application his team showed against a strong Blackpool outfit.
“Right up until the last minute of injury time, they don’t make a chance and that’s commendable to my players because Blackpool do make chances here against any side in the league,” the Stags’ boss said.
“They’ve got good players so we’ve edged out a tight-fought game but I thought in spells we controlled it and they 'huffed and puffed' a bit but I don’t think Jake Kean had a save to make and that probably tells you how good an away performance it was.
“We’ve come [here] today, we got a bit of good fortune with the goal, it gets a little deflection to take it past the ‘keeper but it may have gone in anyway because Matt’s hit it with some force.”
The former Leeds United chief praised the work-rate of top scorer Green and says his back-to-back goals were well-deserved for improving his quality of performance in recent weeks.
“Matt knew he was in danger of going out of the side, he knew that, I didn’t need to sit there and tell an experienced player who’s played a lot of Championship football that he’s in danger of going out.
“I’ve said to our supporters that when you sign a new player it doesn’t mean that you discard the old ones, you ask people to raise their game.
“I thought Matt covered every blade of grass at the One Call Stadium against Doncaster Rovers and I don’t think there’s anyone who covered more grass than him today and he gets his fitting rewards.”
The gaffer revealed post-match that despite signing the quartet of goalkeeper Jake Kean, midfielders Joel Byrom and Ben Whiteman and striker Yoann Arquin in last few days, his recruitment is ongoing as he works towards building a ‘football structure’ at the club.
“We’re going to try and sign some people. We’ve made some offers today, which is written cash offers for players in the [English] Football League, so they’ve gone in this morning.
“We’ve given clubs the respect of allowing those players not to be upset before the games in quick succession, finishing today, and we’ll see where they go.
“We’ll only pay and the chairman will only pay where I value them and where he agrees to pay, otherwise we won’t.
“We’ve put two decent offers in so we’ll see where they go, but we’re also trying to sign other players, of course, who won’t command a fee.
“We have a structure to build and that’s from the management team down to the players and staff. It’s nothing to do with the behind-the-scenes structure because I can say from [seeing] first hand, I’ve been in the club five or six weeks, this club is run impeccably under a great chairman.”
Supporters can view Steve Evans’ post-match interview on Stags PlayerHD.
