‘Embarrassing and inexcusable’ – boss Nigel Clough lashes Mansfield Town after error-strewn home hammering by Reading

The result left Stags still a point short of being safe from the drop with three games to go, but Clough said the costly mistakes on the day highlighted to him the need for better players next season, saying some were probably not good enough.

Louis Reed, George Williams, Christy Pym and Deji Oshilaja were all punished for their poor passes while Keanu Baccus lost the ball and saw Lewis Wing score a 'worldie' from 25 yards on an Easter Monday to forget.

“It was four horrific mistakes and an absolutely stunning strike,” said Clough.

“You can't do anything about the stunning strike, but the four mistakes for the goals were absolutely horrific.

“It's obviously down to players probably not being good enough.

“They had a good first half of the season but can't sustain it and now it's 11 goals in three games conceded, but today was by far the worst.

“I thought for 35 minutes we were absolutely brilliant in terms of our football. Some of our play was our best of the season.

“Then the next level is having the quality in the final third to hit the target instead of putting it in the stand.

“Then we made one of the first horrific mistakes with Louis Reed, their lad gets one shot from 20 yards and it goes into the bottom corner.

“That is the difference – the quality of player when they get the ball in the final third.

“I find it quite embarrassing and inexcusable.

“The last one was the worst one for me. The game was over and for a player of Deji's experience to do what he did was absolutely inexcusable.”

Thankfully relegation rivals Bristol Rovers and Burton Albion both lost too and Clough said: “We have done our work in the first half of the season which has got us to 48 points and others have to catch that.

“If they can't do that then we stay up. They now have to win their last two games.

“We need one point from three games to stay up – it is as clear and stark as that.

“But I think today has been very clarifying and polarises everything of what we have struggled with.

“Maybe performances and victories in the first half of the season covered things up a little bit.

“It has been a difficult afternoon with the mistakes but shows everything clearly – exactly where we are short and what we need.

“When we look back on this game there will be nothing in it football-wise. Just those four incredibly poor errors and the lad smashing one into the top corner.”

He added: “We will now have a couple of days to recover from this one and start planning for Birmingham.

“We have two more injuries at half-time today which won't help and Matty Craig is ill and Stephen McLaughlin injured yesterday – they are piling up again.

“But we will get as honest a team as we can out there on Sunday.”