Stags’ boss Adam Murray says his side’s organisation was the most pleasing thing during the 3-1 victory over Worksop Town this afternoon.
Second half goals from skipper Lee Collins, midfielder Chris Clements and youngster Zayn Hakeem ensured that Stags recorded a fourth win of their pre-season campaign, despite a consolation goal by a Worksop trialist.
And the manager said he’s been concentrating on ‘the little things’ over the last two weeks and the organisation of his team pleased him this afternoon.
“I think our organisation was more where I expect it to be today. It’s the little things that I have looked at over the last couple of weeks,” said Murray.
“I think we’ve got some real good players and it’s the little things that make the big difference and I felt today our organisation [and] some of our patterns were very good.
“We should have had a lot more goals but we’re confident that if we create chances, the goals will come.”
The 34-year-old Stags’ chief says his side have had to cope with a high level of intensity during pre-season training and hopes it will stand his players in good stead for the upcoming campaign.
“We’ve worked hard. I said a couple of weeks ago that our intensity [during] this pre-season is probably a lot higher than we did last pre-season.
“Last pre-season, we were wary of niggles and stuff like that [but] this pre-season we’ve took a little bit more of a risk because we feel that getting a higher intensity of our baseline will enable us to play at a higher tempo for longer into the season.
“The fact of it is that nothing can prepare you for the pace of League Two football, you can’t prepare for that.
“It always does take that first month to get everybody up to that three-point tempo and that’s what we’ve got to aim to do and we’ll push the lads again this week and then we’re into 'proper' football then.”
Murray was also pleased with a number of individual performances at the Windsor Food Service Stadium and he’s got ‘nice headaches’ regarding selection ahead of next week’s season opener against Newport County.
“We made a couple more changes today from what everyone presumed was the team two weeks ago and the thing that we have got is, I keep saying it, a small squad, a tight squad but a high-quality squad.
“So all these boys need to be ready and I think some of the boys that played today, some of the lads that came on; the performances were very, very good.”
Finally, Murray revealed that some of his squad will take part in an open training session at tomorrow’s open day, at a time to be confirmed on mansfieldtown.net.
“It’s a chance for especially the new lads to meet our fans and we’re going to use tomorrow as a training day as well.
“We’ll have a recovery day and I think we’re going to put on a bit of an open session for the lads that haven’t played today so [it's] a chance for our fans to see the boys in action on the training pitch.”
Supporters will be able to watch Adam Murray’s post-match interview on Stags PlayerHD later.
