Mansfield Town boss Nigel Clough encouraged by performance in heartbreaking cup exit at Bolton Wanderers

Will Swan's penalty was saved in sudden death in the shoot-out after Davis Keillor-Dunn's late goal had earned a 1-1 draw in 90 minutes.

“It was a cruel way to lose on penalties and I don't think we deserved to lose,” said Clough.

“The most encouraging thing tonight is, having won at Barnsley on Friday, we have now been to Bolton as well and we have more than held our own in both games.

“I was very pleased with our performance from start to finish tonight.

“It was a different shape with different personnel, but principles stay the same and I thought we knocked it about well.

“We didn't create as much as I would have liked – there was a bit of a lack of conviction in the final third in the first half.”

Both sides made nine changes from the weekend and Clough said: “The lads who came in all did well and showed the strength of the squad.

“Bolton did the same as we thought they would. It was a good opportunity to give the squad a game without it showing any lack of quality in the game, which it didn't tonight.

“We were building minutes into players tonight.

“We were missing Frazer Blake-Tracy from Friday night's injury, Louis Reed had a sore Achilles and, at 38, Stephen Quinn was best to put his feet up tonight.

“Stephen McLaughlin did well at centre half in his first game since Chelsea U21s in Portugal. And we got Elliott Hewitt back on the pitch ready for the Rotherham game next week.”

BOLTON v STAGS – REPORT AND PICTURES

He added: “I wasn't too happy with the goal we conceded. It was a brilliant finish in the end, but we shouldn't have given the free kick away, and then Lee Gregory should have cleared it.

“Having got back into it we had a brilliant chance in stoppage time for Lee Gregory, but it just didn't come down for him.

“We then just needed one out of two penalties to win it as well.

“So the opportunities were there throughout the evening but it just didn't quite go our way.

“It would have been nice to get it done and dusted with Hiram Boateng's kick, but he put it over the bar.

“That puts pressure on the final one to score and the momentum in a penalty shoot-out swings to them.

“I thought we deserved our equaliser over the course of the game.

“We had a great chance with Will Swan early on and Will Evans put the rebound in and was half a yard offside.

“But then Davis popped up for us. It was a lovely pass by Hiram to set it up on the halfway line as he was stretching.

“Davis then did what he does well and gets away and put one into the bottom corner.”

Stags welcome Clough's former club Burton Albion for their first League One home game on Saturday and Clough said: “There were a lot of good performances tonight, but I don't think on Saturday there will be too many changes from the starting line up at Barnsley as we played so well.”