Forget the Crawley Town nightmare and focus on Tuesday says Mansfield Town boss Nigel Clough

The Crawley defeat dropped Stags out the top three and made Tuesday's game against the struggling visitors all the more important.

“It's finished now. As bad as it's been, it's gone once that final whistle blows and there is nothing you can do about it,” said Clough.

“All we can do is look towards the last five games and concentrate on them. We have to win on Tuesday to stay in the race – end of story.

“We've taken one point out of nine.

“When you're chasing at the top of the league you can't afford to do that at this stage of the season.

“But it's still in our hands, which is the only positive thing. We need to put it behind us and give a performance on Tuesday night.

“We can't dwell on it. We have to concentrate on beating Forest Green, who will be battling for their lives on Tuesday.

“Three points and it will be a different story as we head for MK Dons next Saturday.”

Despite the result, home fans clapped Stags off the pitch and Clough said: “I think the lads should be appreciative of that

“Hopefully the fans realise we've had a real off day today – we haven't had too many of them over the last 12 months. I think they realised it was done at the final whistle and we move on to Tuesday.”

On the Crawley game, he said: “It went wrong for us in that first 10 minutes, certainly conceding a goal after only four minutes, which we had talked about all week.

“Crawley have scored in the first two minutes in their last two away games, so we had to make sure we were nice and solid.

“But Aden Flint gave a bad backpass after only two minutes which gave them encouragement straight away and then we ended up 1-0 down.

“You give a side like Crawley, who are as confident as anybody in the league at the moment, a lead and it makes a big difference.

“Five minutes after that our top scorer misses a golden opportunity to make it 1-1 and puts it in stand, as most of out strikers did today.

“Everything that could go wrong did go wrong on the pitch today in terms of our performance.

“Defensively we are going to be a bit vulnerable with so many defenders out injured.

“We looked more like a team fighting relegation rather than one chasing promotion which was the most worrying part.

“The key moments when we had a chance to get back into it, we didn't take it. We had enough chances and situations in that first half to have got at least two goals and go in level.

“Our strikers have been misfiring now for a few weeks and we need them back on form for the last five games.

“The only good thing to come out of today was no more injuries.”

He added: “If we could have got one back after half-time anything can happen.

“Instead they scored a third and he had so much time and space with every yellow shirt absolutely rooted with not one person going to the ball and closing down.

“That is completely the opposite to how we were earlier in the season when we were keeping clean cheet after clean sheet and defending well. That is the most worrying aspect, despite the defenders missing with injury, though that is bound to have an impact.

“We will juggle it around a bit for Tuesday night and see who looks brightest in training.”