Despite being ‘disappointed’ with just a point against Colchester United this evening, manager Nigel Clough says it is ‘extremely encouraging’ that the Stags have embarked on a six-game unbeaten run.
Striker Nicky Maynard fired the amber and blue into the lead on 67 minutes with a stunning effort, but Colchester equalised late on, as Luke Norris lobbed the ball over the onrushing Marek Stech.
The Mansfield boss says that his side did enough to win tonight’s match.
“We could have had the three points tonight,” he told iFollow Stags. “I thought we were comfortable and restricted them to so few opportunities.
“It’s one misjudgement from Marek [Stech] with ten minutes to go, and all of a sudden, they have a lifeline.
“I thought we looked the more likely to get the second goal, and we had a few situations tonight where we could have had that.
“We didn’t quite manage it and I’m very, very disappointed not to get the three points.
“I thought Nicky’s goal was a brilliant strike. He’s just turned and hit it instinctively, in off the bar, it’s a brilliant finish.
“It was another good performance – we’ve just played two top six sides and we’ve got four points, which could have been six. I thought there were a lot of good things out there again tonight.
“Colchester had a lot of the ball in their own half, and didn’t hurt us too much. We responded well late on – I’ve seen teams crumble in those situations and lose the game 2-1.
“We didn’t do that – we went pressing to see if we could go on and get the winner.
“It’s a six-game unbeaten run [that we’re on]. When a team has hardly won a game [this season], I think that is extremely encouraging.”
Nigel Clough says that the Stags must improve on their decision-making when finding themselves in key areas of the field.
“We still have to get better on the ball, so we’re still working on being better and more comfortable on the ball,” he added.
“We were set up to attack – we wanted Stephen [McLaughlin] to get crosses in and our full-backs to join in.
“I think that worked okay. I thought we created enough tonight. Jordan [Bowery] should’ve taken one [shot] instead of crossing it, and Nicky could’ve made a better decision in the second-half to play Jordan in.
“I thought we had very good situations, we just have to make more of them.”
The boss also revealed the Stags’ schedule in the build-up to Tuesday evening’s match at home to Harrogate Town.
“It’s a weekend off for the lads who have played. It’s the same lads again, who have played week-in, week-out, so they’ll get a break over the weekend.
“The rest of the squad and the subs will be in for a session in the morning, and then everyone is in on Monday to prepare for Harrogate on Tuesday night.”
iFollow Stags subscribers can watch Nigel Clough’s interview in full by logging into mansfieldtown.net/ifollow later this evening.
