Mansfield Town

Midfielder frustrated to be sidelined through injury, but aims to make positive return.

Midfield playmaker Chris Clements is aiming to return to our team better than ever before, but admits he feels frustrated to be currently sidelined with a hamstring injury.

The 24-year-old, who has enjoyed a great start to the season, picked up the injury in the early stages of the second half against Carlisle United last Saturday and had to be replaced by team-mate Jamie McGuire.

Scans have since revealed that he could be out of action for up to a month.

“It’s a horrible time to get injured,” admitted Clements. “I think I’ve established myself in the team, started playing well, and then this happens.

“I was tracking back and then I just felt it pop. I thought it was cramp, but then I couldn’t run on it. I’ve had the scan results and it says I’ve got an 11 centimetre tear.”

He continued: “I thought I was doing pretty well, but this seems to happen when you’re doing well. The same thing happened last year when I got myself in the team then got a bad injury against York.

“But I think that’s going to help me this year, because I came back even better last year and I’ll be hoping to do the same this year.”

Having bagged the winner in last month’s 1-0 win over Newport County and enjoyed a solid start this term, Clements believes our team must now ‘kick on’ in order to continue climbing up the Sky Bet League Two table.

“I think we’ve done well this year and started well,” added the playmaker.

“We’ve just got to ‘kick on’ now and keep playing how we’ve been playing lately – apart from the second half against Carlisle which wasn’t us, as we just had a bad second half at the office.

“But I think we can kick on from here. To actually concede two goals, in previous years we would have collapsed and conceded a third or a fourth, so it just shows there is still a bit of resilience in the team to hold on for victory.”

On our team-spirit, which has drawn widespread praise in recent weeks, Clements said: “We’ve got people working for each other and fighting for the cause and that’s what we’ve got to do this year.

“Obviously the squad is smaller, so everyone has got to pull their weight. We’re a tight-knit group and we’d run through a brick wall for each other. That’s basically what it is – us against the world, proving we can [succeed] as a small squad.”

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