Mansfield Town have second bid for striker turned down

Stags boss Nigel Clough is hoping to add a couple of forwards to his squad before the big kick-off in two weeks.

After today's excellent 1-0 home friendly win over Championship new boys Oxford United, he said: “We did put in another bid for a player at the end of the week, the same player as before.

“Hopefully we are getting closer. But after a couple of days deliberation it was turned down again.

“We do have a couple of other targets – both loan targets – so we will step up the interest on them and see if we can get somewhere with them this week.

“It is the forward areas we are really looking for at the moment. We look okay everywhere else.”We are going to sit down and have a chat with him.”

Clough is hoping to tie up a deal with young winger Ben Quinn.

“We had an initial chat with him last week in Portugal and we hope we can get something sorted with him this week if we can,” he said.

However, it looks unlikely that fellow trialist Eric McWoods will be offered a deal.

“We are a little bit tight on numbers in terms of the squad as we are restricted to 21 outfield players this year,” said Clough.

“With Maris, Alfie Kilgour and Rhys Oates all hopefully coming back by October we have to put them in the squad, which uses three places up.

“We will try to squeeze one in somewhere but if not we will go with youngsters.”

Clough gave an update on injuries with Will Swan and Keanu Baccus coming off today before half-time and Elliott Hewitt, Stephen McLaughlin and Baily Cargill also missing along with George Maris, who will definitely miss the start of the season.

“Unfortunately we lost a couple to injury today which is not ideal,” said Clough.

“Will Swan twisted his ankle and that has swollen up already, so he may not feature in midweek.

“Keanu had a tight hamstring, probably linked to his back. We will have to see how he is. Hopefully he will be okay for next weekend.

“Elliott is still not quite right with his knee, it has been a bit troublesome over the summer so he is just building up slowly.

“He has a chance of playing maybe 45 minutes at Matlock in 10 days.

“Baily has a tight calf from training on Thursday in Portugal and Macca the same wit a tight calf, both of them are looking towards next weekend or Matlock.

“George Maris has ankle ligament damage. He doesn't need an operation, which is good news, but he has a boot on and will be absent for a good few weeks, he will definitely miss the start of the season and probably a few weeks into it.”

Davis Keillor-Dunn missed the best chance of the first half today but bagged the second half winner as Stags again impressed.

“It was a very good work-out with 70-odd minutes for most of the lads – a reversal of who played in Portugal on Tuesday,” said Clough.

“It was ideal building them up to a full 90 minutes.

“Results are irrelevant. We're looking for patterns of play which you saw today. The shape was very good.

“It was good to have a game against a Championship side so we can measure ourselves and see what level we are. But we are very pleased with the first three weeks work.

“Normally we have a little dip pre-season in one of the games - and it's usually this one with two weeks to go. But today I thought we looked a bit brighter.

“We had other good chances to score more goals today and hopefully that is something we will sharpen up on.”

On Keillor-Dunn's first half miss, he added: “He didn't have to hit it that hard. I thought he was just going to sidefoot it into the bottom corner. He looked extremely surprised when it did fly wide. But come 10 days, two weeks, time he will put it away.”