Boss Nigel Clough says his side must make no mistakes if they are to take something from Tuesday evening’s home match against league leaders Cheltenham Town.
The Stags will face a stern test as they look to bounce back from Saturday’s defeat to Barrow, with high-flying Robins the visitors to One Call Stadium.
The manager says that his side must ‘defend better’ than they have in recent matches.
“We’re certainly going to have to defend better than we have done. But they are one of the most solid teams [in the division],” he told iFollow Stags.
“Once they do get ahead, then they’re very difficult for us to break down. So that will be the priority, to not go behind in the game tomorrow night.
“I think they [Cheltenham] have a really good chance of doing it [earning promotion].
“You look at teams like them and Forest Green and how they’ve built, they’ve kept the same manager over the last few seasons and they’re probably the best two teams in the league. Maybe Cambridge as well are up there.
“They’re all vying for automatic promotion. I think that says an awful lot about what teams can do in order to achieve success.
“It [long throw] comes in and it’s a potent weapon for them [Cheltenham]. We dealt with it fantastically apart from one in the [Emirates FA] cup game, and it’s the one that cost us the game.
“That’s the thing with it, because they get so many opportunities to sling it in there when you give throw-ins away. You have to deal with every one.
“[The emphasis is on making] no mistakes [tomorrow night].”
Nigel Clough also offered his final thoughts on Saturday’s frustrating afternoon away to Barrow.
“Overall performance was good, but we lost because of individual errors again.
“We’ve seen the centre-halves make mistakes in the last few games and I think they’ve responded well.
“I thought Faz Rawson especially was excellent on Saturday. I thought Ryan Sweeney was unbelievably unlucky to get a second yellow card.
“If we could appeal it, we would. But we’re not allowed to. It was so innocuous, and he was very unlucky to get that.
“But even with ten men, Stoney [Aidan Stone] hadn’t touched the ball for the majority of the game.
“Then all of a sudden, we make the error, the other one goes in quickly and the game’s over.
“We have to really get in there and die for a goal at the moment. We have to make more clear cut chances from the situations we’re having.
“Our build-up play again was good on Saturday. We got into great areas, but wasted crosses at times. We also put a few good ones in there.
“It’s about creating more chances from the situations we’re in, because our general play is fine.”
There was also an injury update on several players from the Mansfield Town boss.
“He [Aidan Stone] is in the treatment room with ice on his knee at the moment. We’re not quite sure as it’s early to tell, but we don’t think it’s as bad as we feared.
“We’ll probably know a little more later this week when it settles down.
“We weren’t going to bring him [Jordan Bowery] off [on Saturday]. But he got a whack as the lad landed on top of his foot, so there’s no point risking him. We’re hoping he’ll be okay for Cheltenham.
“He [George Lapslie] has [got a chance of making the squad tomorrow]. He hasn’t joined in training yet but he’s done a lot of individual stuff. We’re looking for him to join in training this morning and see how he is from there.
“Oli Sarkic will probably be towards the weekend, but Stephen McLaughlin has a chance for Tuesday. We’re hoping he’ll train this morning and see how he is.”
iFollow Stags subscribers can watch the manager’s interview in full by logging into mansfieldtown.net/ifollow later today.
