Stags starting to click after busy day of friendlies

Mansfield Town boss Adam Murray was pleased with his two sides' displays in today's friendlies at Clipstone and Carlton Town and said he felt the Stags were starting to click.
Mansfield Town's Daniel Rose - Pic by Chris HollowayMansfield Town's Daniel Rose - Pic by Chris Holloway
Mansfield Town's Daniel Rose - Pic by Chris Holloway

A different Stags XI drew 2-2 at NCEL Premier Division Clipstone in the middle of the day before an even stronger side won 4-3 at Evo-Stik NPL Division One South side Carlton Town in a teatime kick-off, both games ending with youth team players and younger squad members getting on the pitch.

Click HERE to read the Carlton report

Click HERE to read the Clipstone report

“There were some very good individual performances and some really good play at times,” said Murray after the Carlton win.

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“The pitch didn’t help. It was very slow as the grass was a bit long.

“I was a bit disappointed that over the two games we conceded three goals from mistakes. But you allow a bit with it being pre-season. We are a little bit rusty.

“But overall we showed some really good positive play and things are really starting to click into place now. We are seeing things come together, which is very pleasing.

A sharp-looking Matt Green bagged a brace at Carlton which will do his confidence a world of good.

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“It’s always important whether it’s the beginning of the season or the middle of the season to score goals,” said Murray.

“We have some good centre forwards in the building at the minute and I think we’ve seen over the three games that we are going to create chances.

“It’s up to us then to want to take them and work out different ways to break teams down.

“We’ve seen this week, especially first half here today (Carlton) that when we do come up against teams that want us to break them down, we do have a number of ideas to do that.

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“I felt we did that today and the opportunities we created were very good, and it was very pleasing to get the kids involved as well and there were some very good performances.”

Midfielder Jack Thomas missed both games with a tight groin as a precaution.