Injury worries for Mansfield Town as huge games loom

It is the start of a difficult week with another huge club, Huddersfield Town, at the One Call Stadium on Saturday.

Lee Gregory, Deji Ohilaja, Aden Flint and Aaron Lewis were all ruled out last weekend while Ben Quinn came off with a shoulder injury.

Also, defender Baily Cargill will serve a one game ban for five yellow cards tomorrow.

Flint has a broken nose and manager Nigel Clough said: “We are going to have a look at him. He is having a mask fitted so we will see how comfortable that is for Bolton.

“We have Deji out with his groin too and Aaron Lewis with his hamstring.

“So we are hoping Deji, Flinty and Aaron are not going to be too long.

“I would say they are 50-50 for tomorrow.

“Ben Quinn partially dislocated his shoulder on Saturday. He says he has done it before – it pops out a little bit and he is able to put it back in, though it is very sore.

“So he certainly won't be involved tomorrow night. But hopefully it won't be too long.”

Top scorer Gregory is out for 'several weeks' and unlikely to return before the Christmas period.

Clough knows how difficult this week's games are going to be but said it was exciting to be going toe to toe with such big clubs.

“When you look at the fixtures in League One at the start of the season we were set to face eight or nine ex-Premier League teams and we have two of them in four days in Bolton and Huddersfield,” he said.

“Bolton and Huddersfield are both very strong teams with strong squads for clubs at this level and I think both will be looking to get back out of this league as soon as they can,” he said.

“Bolton were very close last year and have been building for three or four seasons. They have put a very good squad together.

“But we did very well up there in the Carabao Cup earlier this season when we lost on penalties and hopefully we can put a similar performance on.

“On their day, Bolton and Birmingham are probably the two teams that can hurt you most football-wise in this league.

“I just hope they don't click, but it's our job to stop them doing that, as we mostly did at leaders Wycombe and second in the league Wrexham.”

He added: “I don't think it fazes us going to these places after the first two or three months of the season.

“We are now reasonably confident in our own ability to defend and also play a little bit of our own stuff as well.

“Coming into a new league and trying to get used to it and establish yourself, when we have gone to the big teams we have played well.

“That is the most important thing. We just want to keep playing in the way we play.

“We don't want to change, though we do have to keep improving. The principles have to stay the same though.

“We've lost three on the spin in the league so it would be nice to get a result or two in these next two.”

After three 1-0 league defeats, Stags halted the run with a 1-0 FA Cup win at Stevenage on Saturday and Clough said: “We have an unbelievably honest squad whose character came through in the second half on Saturday and who could easily have had three victories in the previous three games, which didn't go our way. The effort has never been in doubt.”