Mansfield Town boss Adam Murray wants our supporters to continue their ‘brilliant’ backing in Saturday’s home match against Luton Town.
The game against the Hatters will be the third straight home game which chairman John Radford has dropped ticket prices for individuals aged 17 and under to just £1.
And our manager is looking forward to the prospect of the atmosphere inside One Call Stadium to be similar to the recent home encounter with Stevenage, when Murray was particularly impressed with the noise generated inside the ground.
Speaking in today's news conference, he said: “I’ve probably got to apologise to the travelling fans on Saturday – not for the way the game ended, but because of my frustration. I probably didn’t go over and appreciate the support like I normally do.
“We do appreciate it. They were brilliant on Saturday again but I thought the home game against Stevenage [was the] best I’ve seen them. It was like being in Turkey, it was brilliant and it made a difference to the players. [There’s] 20 games [left], let’s have a right go – what will be will be.”
Murray was keen to reaffirm that despite wanting the club to achieve success in the current campaign, he doesn’t want to lose perspective of the job he’s got ahead of him; making Mansfield a consistent team in the upper echelons of the division.
“I have to keep emphasising that we want success this season, that’s not going to change. I want this club to be a continuous competitive side, not just a one-off.
“This season’s about building from where we’ve come from, putting some real foundations in and moving forward- we’re in a really good place.
“They’re (Mansfield’s players) trying to do the right things, sometimes I’ve got to learn that decision-making will be ‘off’ at either end because with all due respect, we’re in League Two. If we’re getting the right decisions every week, the players wouldn’t be here. It’s tough to be patient with that, but we’re on the right track.”
The gaffer revealed news regarding the fitness of defender Mal Benning and striker Adi Yussuf, as they both look to get back to full fitness to help the Stags back into the play-off positions.
“Mal’s is back in training today so that’ll be an upwards step for him now. His intensity and everything will go up and it’ll be how he reacts to that. Adi Yussuf’s still out, hopefully his rehab will take an upward turn this week.”
The manager was upbeat about the challenge of maximising the potential of his current batch of players for the rest of the campaign, instead of delving further into the transfer market.
“I’m not looking at anything in particular [for the January transfer window], obviously we’re trying to get Blair (Adams) done today. The easy option is for me to go to the chairman and say: ‘look, we need this and we need that’. Being brutally honest, we haven’t got the resources that probably the top four/five clubs have got.
“We’ve got very good players here, the chairman’s backed me to get very good players in. We’ve got a small squad but I believe within it, we can learn and grow this season. I know a lot of people in football and you know what these top clubs are doing and we just can’t do that. What we can do is work extra hard and get the best out of the players we’ve got.”
You can view Murray's news conference on Stags Player.
