LOMAS ON MANSFIELD TOWN: Massive four days ahead for the suffering Stags

Successive away games at fellow strugglers Morecambe and Leyton Orient could see Stags pull clear of trouble or sink right into it.

Two games back Mansfield had four games ahead of them against sides around them and that offered a huge chance to end any dark thoughts about finishing bottom and losing EFL status once more.

But just one point from those first two games has left question marks and doubts lingering.

As assistant boss Joe Dunne pointed out this week, Stags are nine points clear of the drop as well as being only nine points short of the comfort of 11th place.

But, with only 15 games left, the chances of rectifying bad results get less with each passing week and the side's habit of continually shooting themselves in the foot does worry.

At 2-0 with only nine minutes left against visiting Carlisle last weekend, the three points should have been sealed.

A freak goal from a cross allowed Carlisle a sniff. But the defensive chaos and panic that followed underlined the fragility these players have in themselves and their current inability to make Mansfield safe.

As Dunne admitted, when the 93rd minute free kick came into the box you could almost read the players' minds that they had seen this script too many times already and there was almost an inevitability the ball would end up in the net.

New boss Graham Coughlan has certainly toughened up his squad's fitness.

It is their mental toughness that remains the problem.

It will certainly be a new-look squad with some much-needed freshness that tackles the task ahead with Jack Evans becoming the fourth new face in the transfer window.

We met Jack on Tuesday and he would appear to be not only a talented young footballer desperate to get his career going, but also doubly determined after losing a year for cancer treatment and knowing more than many of us just how precious it is to be alive.

Of the outgoing players, many eyebrows were raised at the loss of striker Andy Cook.

He had been scoring goals from the bench but it has been far from the dream season he would have envisaged in the summer.

He has not played many games, has taken some stick, and suddenly his former club Tranmere, where he is a legend, ask him to jump up a division and return to them. What would you have done?

Under contract, Stags could have forced him to stay but there is no point in keeping unhappy players in this game. It serves no purpose.

But it does put pressure on Craig Davies to get fully fit in case Nicky Maynard or Danny Rose get injured as well as offering a possible opening to youngsters like Jordan Graham and Jimmy Knowles.

If those combinations don't work there will be plenty of free agent strikers out there desperate to win a contract for next season.