Mansfield Town impress in penalties win over Derby County but pick up new injury worries

Stags won the shoot-out after the sides had drawn 1-1 in an excellent game that boss Nigel Clough was using to get minutes into the legs of players who had been on the bench recently.

However, he lost three of them early – Keiran Wallace, Jordan Bowery and John-Joe O'Toole - while another - Hiram Boateng - made a first tentative return from his hamstring injury

“We had planned for certain players to play 90 minutes,” said Clough.

“Kieran Wallace was down to play 90 but came off after 25 minutes, which wasn't ideal. Jordan Bowery was down to play 90 but felt ill at half-time and John-Joe O'Toole was down to play 90 but he got a nasty gash on his eyebrow.

“It sort of threw our plans a little bit.

“John-Joe has had quite a few stitches – it was quite a deep, wide cut. We will have to see how he is as it is about him heading the ball obviously.

“Kieran felt dizzy after a bang on the back of the head which brought on a migraine. He has had that before and we don't take any chances.

“Hiram had his first 60 minutes for quite some time and is going to take some time to get back into the swing of it. The most important thing was getting him back out on the pitch. We will see how he is in the next few days.”

However, Clough was delighted with his side's display.

“It was a good game of football and I thought we played exceptionally well again on the back of Friday night's performance. There was some outstanding play at times.

“So, ultimately, there was disappointment at not getting the three points.

“We created numerous opportunities, especially first half.

“Even 1-0 down before half-time we had hit the crossbar, had a good shout for a penalty, missed one or two opportunities, and you think it's not going to be our night.

“But we deservedly got back on level terms and then second half it was a bit more even but we still had five or six unbelievably good chances.”

He added: “We are in the first few days of October and lads still need game time which is why we want to try to stay in this competition.

“Another one in November wouldn't do us any harm at all. Otherwise we're just arranging friendlies at the training ground. We would much rather play in a competitive game like this.

“I thought for a Papa John's game, which people are quite dismissive of, to get the crowd in we had of over 3,500 – we were getting that for league games a couple of years ago. So it was a brilliant turn-out and they were rewarded with seeing a good game.”

This was the first time Mansfield had won a penalty shoot-out since 2013 and Clough said: “It was good practice. You don't get many chances to take penalties in a match situation. You never know, we might need it in the FA Cup later in the season.”