Mansfield Town midfielder George Maris says Stags’ four new signings in January gave the squad ‘a new lease of life’.
The 26-year-old, who joined the Stags in the summer of 2020, has been an important part of Nigel Clough’s squad so far this term.
The creative midfielder has appeared on 35 occasions so far this season including Stags’ most recent home win against Gillingham and has found the back of the net five times so far during this campaign.
Speaking to iFollow Stags in a news conference this afternoon on Mansfield’s newest recruits, Maris said: “They’re good lads. They’ve fitted in straight away and they’re good players more importantly.
“Alfie [Kilgour has] come in and looked solid. I’ve played against Davo [Davis Keillor-Dunn] for a few years and he’s always been a good player so to get him in was a great one.
“Callum [Johnson] is injured at the moment but he started off flying.
“It was like a new lease of life for us when they came in. We were having a bit of an up and down period but since they’ve come in the results have started to pick up and there’s no surprise we’re right up there in the league again.
“We’ve got a lot of bodies to come back, a couple may be [back] sooner and there will be more long term.”
The former Cambridge United man has missed the last two victories on the road due to injury.
Providing an injury update, he said: “[My Achilles is] not bad. It’s better this week [as] I’ve had some treatment [on it]. It was too sore for Saturday so we’ll see if we can get it going this week.
“I’d say it's pretty 50/50 at the moment [in terms of my chances to be involved against Salford on Saturday]. It’s just the pushing off side of things and it’s not worth risking it if I can’t push off so that’s why I had to pull out of the warm-up on Saturday. Hopefully I’ll be out there on Saturday at some point.”
Mansfield have secured a maximum of nine points from their last three games within seven days and Maris said: “I think defensively we’ve just got it right. We looked secure at the back [as well as] scoring eight in a week.
“We’ve added Davo [Davis Keillor-Dunn], who’s really added to things up front. Him and Lucas [Akins] look like they’ll be a good partnership so it’s a good way to start the thing [partnership] they’ve got going.”
