Mansfield Town

Defender reflects on impressive defensive display against Cambridge United.

Defender Martin Riley was satisfied with his ‘man of the match’ display in yesterday’s goalless draw with Cambridge United at One Call Stadium.

The 27-year-old enjoyed a solid afternoon, foiling the U’s on several occasions with some perfectly-timed challenges, in order to help our team keep a clean-sheet.

Commenting on the game, Riley said: “It was a typical League Two battle. It had two strong teams, two big, physical teams. It was a difficult second half. I think 0-0 was a fair result in the end.
 
“The main thing was for everyone to dig in, show an unbelievable attitude and all stick together, because it's been difficult to see the injury to Jonah (Luke Jones) and a few of the other lads dropping out [because of injury].”

He continued: “Every team that comes out of the Conference Premier always do well in League Two, having had a winning mentality from the Conference. Teams take this into League Two. We saw last week [on the TV] that they were going to be a decent side, but we more than matched them.”

The defender was particularly proud of the way that our defence operated against the U's, adding: "I'm delighted for Sascha Studer. He's come back into the team and could have potentially had two clean-sheets. We conceded one goal at Portsmouth last week, but credit to Sash and credit to the other two at the back with me. A clean-sheet is always a good day for the defenders."
 
It’s a busy week ahead for our injury-hit team with matches against Tranmere Rovers and York City, both of whom have appointed new managers in the past few days.

Riley added: “Tranmere have just got a new manager in, they are going to be buoyed by that. We are expecting another battle there.

“It's the same with York, it's just our luck that they've had two managers come in recently and I'm sure they are going to be really up for a battle.”