Mansfield Town midfielder Adam Chapman says today’s 5-0 demolition of Notts County was the Stags’ best performance of the season.
Goals from winger Reggie Lambe, midfielders Adam Chapman and Mitch Rose and a brace from striker Matt Green secured the Stags’ biggest ever win over the Magpies.
And former Newport County man Chapman says today’s incredible victory over the Magpies was their finest performance of the season, even if they didn’t play as much ‘nice football’ as they hoped.
“You weigh everything up and yeah I’d go as far as to say this is the best performance because it’s resulted in three points against your local rivals in front of a packed house,” Chapman said.
“I mean, there’s been better footballing performances in the last few weeks and we’ve got beat.
“It was a mentality win, it was desire, it was energy, it was effort. Probably technically it wasn’t great – we probably didn’t have as much possession as we wanted and play as nice football as we want to but that goes out the window on derby day.
“I think we out-fought, we out-battled, we out-ran [Notts County]. You look at Blairy (Matty Blair), Jack Thomas, Reggie (Lambe), Mani (Dieseruvwe), the shift he put in and obviously Greeny (Matt Green), the shift he puts in made my life easy. I just had to stand and watch and encourage. I think that was the main point of a good victory today.”
The 26-year-old scored a sensational free-kick to make the match 2-0 this afternoon and he said he was always going to shoot, even though his team-mates wanted him to cross the ball into the box.
“I’ve not been able get near a free-kick all year! Clem (Chris Clements) and Mal (Benning) have been unbelievable and I’ve seen Ryan (Tafazolli) and he’s told me to hang it [in the air] and I’ve gone: ‘Yeah, yeah, no bother!’ and I was just going to smash it at goal. Luckily it went flying in the top bin.”
Chapman was pleased to see his team-mates show the ambition to keep attacking and attempt to further increase their advantage, despite already being 3-0 up after an hour of the contest had been played.
“When you get to 3-0, normally at home, you might take your foot off [the gas] we didn’t want to do that. We wanted five, we wanted six, we could hear the crowd and the boys were all hungry for a goal. Mitch (Rose) and Greeny were fighting for the goal at the end. That is what you want to see.
“We should want to do that every week if we get two or three nil up, but that desire at 3-0 to keep going, keep pressing and put them to the sword really as much as we possibly can was obviously nice to see.”
Adam Chapman's post-match interview will be available to view on Stags Player HD shortly.
