Mansfield Town

Manager Adam Murray was looking firmly to the future as a challenging campaign drew to a close with a defeat at Accrington Stanley this afternoon.

Jamie McGuire opened the scoring with a spectacular volley just before half-time, but the hosts battled back and scored twice after the re-start to record a 2-1 victory and pick up the three points.

“I’ve never wanted anything to finish as quickly in my life, but I’m positive for the future and I can’t wait to get started on pre-season,” said our manager, who was speaking in his post-match interview.

“There’s a part of me that’s really excited. I look at the fans who travelled today and they deserve something to stand there and be proud of and I’ll give it to them – I don’t have any doubts about that. I thought the support was superb today.”

When asked about his immediate aims, Murray continued: “We need to let the lads know what’s going on, but there is a lot of planning already in place and a lot of change going on behind the scenes.

“There are certain things coming in at the football club which we haven’t had for a while and I feel it will push us on to be more professional. They’re little things, which other clubs have got and put in place.

“We’re moving a little bit from the dinosaurs to the modern era [and adding things] like your strength and conditioning coaches, your sports scientists. They’re all things which make a huge difference.

“We’ve turned up to places this year at times and I’ve looked at us and other clubs and it’s like men against boys. I won’t have my team which I put out there looked upon like that.

“So there’s loads of work to do. The rebuilding has already started and we’ve got a hell of a lot of targets that we’re talking to and I want to get going now [for next season] to be honest.”

Our boss also confirmed his retained list will be released next week.

“I’ve known for a little while on the majority of players,” said the gaffer. “Some have probably let themselves down and the balance will be to bring in a core of, first and foremost, good people, because the football club deserves good people.

“Secondly, we want to put the footballers in place so we can go and express ourselves.

He added: “I’ve read in the last couple of days that we haven’t had a penalty in 80 games and that’s for a reason. That’s because, at times, we’ve only got one person in the box. We haven’t been an attacking threat for two years, so there’s loads of work to do.

“I’ve been in the game long enough to understand what I feel will be a force in this league. If I’m allowed to do what I want to do, then I’m confident and I cannot wait.”

Reflecting on today’s game, our boss said: “Unfortunately we showed the weaknesses today – especially in the second half. In the first half I thought we dominated, but didn’t take advantage of it and we’ve said that a number of times this season.

“I think the weakness and lack of certain aspects within our team today were shown.”

Looking back on the 2014/15 campaign as a whole, our boss said: “It’s been a challenge from the off. We knew when we started in pre-season the way the season was going to go and the fight we were going to be in for.

“It was planned out that way. We made it probably a million times tougher for ourselves with the inconsistency that we’ve shown and that was summed up by today[‘s defeat at Accrington].”