Striker Shaquile Coulthirst says the Stags’ success at both ends of the pitch is a credit to every player following today's 2-0 victory over Barnet.
The Peterborough United loanee scored a second-half penalty to wrap up three excellent points for the Stags after midfielder Ben Whiteman had opened the scoring with a well-taken finish in the first half.
And the 22-year-old says the hard work of the Stags’ players has contributed to both keeping clean sheets and scoring goals during the current seven-match unbeaten run.
“It’s a credit to all of the pitch because I’m running and Danny Rose is running and everyone’s running together to be honest.
“The clean sheet comes from there and it’s the same when we score goals; it’s not just me or anyone else who scores, it’s the whole team who scores. That’s what we’ll celebrate together and that’s the main thing.
“Right now it’s going well for us, hopefully we keep winning games and keeping clean sheets and scoring goals.”
With five strikers all competing for a starting place in manager Steve Evans’ side, Coulthirst says the competition for a starting berth forces players to raise their game.
“The main thing for us is that we keep scoring goals and winning games. Competition is really important for us and you never know what’s going to happen.
“You never know if you’re going to start the next game so you’ve got to score goals and bring the performance up and I feel like for the last few weeks, we’ve been doing that.
“To be honest, I wanted to score every game, that was the plan. I didn’t score last week but I got Man-of-the-Match so I was pretty happy with that. I look to score as many as possible, every game I want to score.”
Coulthirst says that the current squad has the ability to break in to the Sky Bet League Two play-offs but they have to remain focussed on each game.
“[We can go] as high as we want really. I think we’ve got the quality in the dressing room – we’ve got fighters as you’ve seen today and last week and the week before since I’ve been here.
“We’ve got the quality so it’s just up to us how many games we can win and how many points we can get on the board.
“Play-offs are what we’re trying to get but if we take it game-by-game and not look too far ahead and just try to take it game-by-game and get three points after three points after three points and see where we end up at the end of the season.”
Finally, the former Tottenham Hotspur man dubbed the travelling support as ‘magnificent’ after experiencing a brilliant atmosphere at One Call Stadium last weekend.
“I said this last week against Leyton Orient, our home game – they were magnificent. I’ve played there before and the crowd’s been pretty loud but that was crazy what happened last week so I thought today they were pretty similar for the amount of fans there were.”
Supporters can view Shaq Coulthirst’s full interview on Stags PlayerHD.
