Graham Coughlan says Mansfield Town must go back to basics.

Stags were beaten 3-1 by Lincoln City in Group E of the EFL Trophy on Tuesday night leaving them still seeking a first win.

“When you’re going through a little bit of sticky patch, you probably go back to basics, and I think that’s where we are at this point.

“A lot of work we do Monday to Friday is excellent, but we don’t tend to see that on the Saturday. That for me is a little bit of a concern.

“The lads feel that the whole world is against them and what they’re trying to do is not coming off. The only way out of that is to just keep working.

“They’re an honest, hard-working group of lads and I don’t think anyone can question that. We certainly don’t lack work rate and effort, but work rate and effort is not going to win us games in this current state.

“We need to put all of our energy into getting a result at the weekend.”

Goals from Jamie Soule, Anthony Scully and Theo Archibald gave the Imps a 3-0 lead before Rollin Menayese pulled a consolation goal back.

It left a frustrated Coughlan admitting his side had not been good enough.

“We weren’t good enough,” he said. “We made some elementary errors – but we seem to standing here talking about the same things over and over again.

“Possession of the football wasn’t good enough and we gave it away too easily. When you give the ball away to good teams, you’re going to be in trouble.

“There’s no getting away from it – the goals that we have been shipping have been individual errors and daft goals to be giving away.

“That’s just where one or two lads are and that’s where we find ourselves at this moment at time.

“The only way out of it is rolling your sleeves up, digging deep and working hard on the training ground.”