Liam Roberts discusses Mansfield Town's derby day mentality ahead of Notts County
Mansfield Town will host Notts County in the highly anticipated Nottinghamshire Derby this Saturday.
As the big derby day returns, Liam Roberts has stressed the importance of Stags filtering out noise surrounding the clash and focusing completely on their performance on the pitch.
Mansfield enter this weekend following their impressive run on the road last week but as previously highlighted by Andy Garner, form often goes out the window when it comes to the derby.
“There is an element of that, there has to be. You can be bottom of the league against the top but when that derby game comes, you’re on a level pitch. You’re scrapping because it’s a game you don’t want to lose,” the Stags coach said earlier this week.
Mansfield Town and Notts County haven’t played each other since 2024 when they were in League Two together, so the excitement ahead of Saturday has been building. The match is expected to be a full house, with both home and away tickets sold out ahead of the weekend.
Roberts, who put in a crucial shift against Blackpool for Stags’ 4-1 win, has stated the importance of the team replicating their previous displays.
“We know the outside noise and we know fans want the three points. We just have to – in the nicest way possible – shut that off and stay as relaxed as we possibly can. We’re in a good run of form and we need to understand that the things we’ve been doing, we have to do on Saturday,” the goalkeeper said in his midweek press conference.
“Your emotions can sometimes get too ahead of you and you go into the game thinking of everyone else, when the main thing is the football on the pitch. We can’t control what’s going on around it, we can only control what we do on it.”
Both Roberts and Garner are eager for Stags to put on a performance that will keep the home fans singing throughout the day.
Roberts enjoyed his moment with the travelling supporters at Bloomfield Road last week as he led the full-time celebrations.
“We’ll go out there and try to put a performance on and hopefully it’s one they will be proud of,” he said ahead of derby day.
Get ready for the big day with a look back at the history of Mansfield Town vs Notts County in the Nottinghamshire Derby