Mansfield Town squad set to be complete by Monday as Nigel Clough closes in on target centre half

Clough has been searching for one more centre half to complete his jigsaw and believes he may have got his man just in time for a trip seen as the perfect bonding exercise for new faces.

“I think we are pretty close to agreeing something in principle,” he said following today's 4-0 friendly win at Alfreton Town.

“So hopefully it will be done in time for him to get to Scotland with us on Monday.

“That is the plan. He will have his medical on Monday morning and be on the bus with everyone else Monday afternoon if everything is agreed and confirmed over the weekend.

“He is primarily a centre half who covers at full back as well.

“And it will be a permanent transfer, so at the moment we haven't got any loans which is good as they are all committed. It's a good position.

“There is just the two we will leave at home in Elliott Hewitt and Stephen McLaughlin. They will be doing rehab work back here.”

Stags have also had Brennan Dickenson and Kieran Freeman training with them but Dickenson has now departed and Freeman looks unlikely to be offered anything since Aaron Lewis signed last week.

“Brennan just came in for 10 days training just to help him along with his fitness as a favour,” said Clough.

“Keiran also came in to do some work to get him up to speed a bit. But I think we will have 20 players without him, 21 with Ollie Clarke, and that will be enough.

Will Swan, Rhys Oates, Jakub Kruszynski and Calum Macdonald all found the net in today's dominant display at National League North neighbours Alfreton and Clough said: “It was a little step up from Tuesday with a bit more intensity. “The lads have had a tough week's training, so it was good to finish the week off with a good 45 minutes of work.

“We tried to split the team reasonably evenly so we got the same first half and second half. And I think of the 20-odd players we used, it did look pretty even with some good stuff.

“It was nice for young Jakub to get a goal and come on for half an hour. He was very close to scoring a second too.

“His involvement this season will depend on injuries and numbers. We have this group of five or six U19s, so if we need them we will dip into that.

“We could have had a couple more goals today but their keeper made a couple of good saves.

“At the other end there was just the one skirmish at the end with the free kick.”

He added: “We are the stage where you can see we've got three weeks' work to sharpen up.

“Hopefully we are again unscathed injury-wise after today. Callum Johnson took the only daft tackle in the game and took a whack on his ankle but I think he is okay.

“We are looking forward to hopefully Ollie Clarke training towards the end of the week.”

Stags head up to St Andrews on Monday and return on Friday ahead of a home friendly with Rotherham United next Saturday.