Manager Nigel Clough gave his verdict on Mansfield Town’s 1-1 draw with Sutton United in blustery conditions at One Call Stadium.
The visitors took an early lead through former Stag Lee Angol on eight minutes. Mansfield rallied and struck an equaliser on 35 minutes, thanks to George Maris’ delicate finish.
Stags remain inside the Sky Bet League Two automatic promotion places, one point ahead of fourth placed Crewe Alexandra with a game in hand.
Mansfield experienced gusts of up to 49 mph during the contest. However, Nigel felt Stags only had themselves to blame for not taking the three points.
On the windy conditions, he told iFollow Stags: “You’ve got to try and get the ball down on the floor, that’s where the least wind is. You saw that as soon as anything went in the air [it quickly skewed out of control].”
“[The wind] Was as bad as it’s been for a long time. It did make it difficult certainly, especially when you’re chasing the game.
“What you don’t do in those conditions is give a goal away, which we did. It makes it unbelievably difficult.
“[It was] A blatant mistake. [It was] A pass that should never be made.
“We’ve spoken about it since Crewe and Morecambe on giving soft goals away that cost you games.
“Ultimately we’ve drawn the game because of the goal we’ve conceded. We have to get back to where we were a month or two ago when we were keeping clean sheets.”
The gaffer felt Mansfield displayed some positive patterns of play to create potential match-winning situations.
He said: “We got into some good positions, made set plays difficult [for Sutton to defend]. They defended well, I’ll give them a lot of credit, [they were] very spirited, a different proposition to the one we faced before Christmas.”
On Will Swan’s chance on 84 minutes, he said: “It was a brilliant move. We had a few of them in the game but that was probably the best one. It was a great cross from Jordan [Bowery], he just got it past the man on the near post. Swanny’s just headed it half a yard wide [of the post].”
The boss hopes Stags can add to their squad ahead of the weekend’s trip to Wimbledon
“We’re trying,” he said. “Everyday we’re making so many calls and pushing as much as we can. We’ve got a small select number of targets and we hope to get one in before [the Wimbledon match].”
