Mansfield Town starting to believe in themselves ahead of trip to managerless Crawley Town

A magnificent 2-0 away win at Northampton Town on Saturday has Stags fifth in the table with 14 points ahead of the game away to managerless Crawley, who are 20th.

“Saturday's win can be a little bit of a template for away performances in that we might not have the majority of the ball but we were a threat with it when we did have it,” said Clough.

“I hope it does boost our belief as I think we are a little tentative at the moment going into games and for the first half hour or whatever I am not sure we totally believe we are all right at this level.

“It sometimes takes us to half-time to go, come on, let's get going a little bit.

“Then when players step it up a bit we are okay.

“Hopefully we will get better as the season progresses and the belief we can compete at this level will just grow.

“Hopefully each result will just increase that belief, though the return of 14 points after seven games is absolutely magnificent.

“We have to keep it going, especially this week. It is a big week. We set the players a target from the three games this week ahead of what we believe will be an international break.

“If we can get results from these two it will have been an absolutely brilliant start.”

He added: “It is a tremendous return from seven games. We have had to work incredibly hard in all of them to get the points – that has probably been the most noteworthy aspect of it.

“To get 14 points has been absolutely brilliant, and to score goals as well.

“We have scored in every game, which is important, and we got our first clean sheet on Saturday, which is also important.

“Hopefully we can now get the balance right and get a few more clean sheets, but not at the expense of our attacking threat.

“On Saturday we had the highest XG in the league, 3.7 or something like that.

“When you play two up top they are a threat and it's something we have to keep exploiting.”

On opponents Crawley, Clough said: “They have made a very steady start, though losing manager Scott Lindsey will be a blow for them,

“But, with Ben Gladwin taking over, he was there under Scott, who did an incredible job for them, and the report from Saturday said they just continued in the same vein.

“Apparently they are an extremely good footballing, possession-based team.

“It will be incredibly tough tomorrow, especially on the back of the journey and the effort that went in on Saturday.

“It is a cruel one for supporters as well to have to travel down to Crawley on a Tuesday night – it makes it very difficult for them.”

Bolton Wanderers won 2-0 at Crawley on Saturday and Clough said: “Bolton's approach was interesting – they didn't go chasing after them too much.

“For a team to have 70 per cent possession against Bolton, who like to have the ball themselves, shows you the pattern of the game.

“It won't be about how much we have the ball but what we do with it when we have it. Like Bolton on Saturday, we have to hurt them when we have the opportunity.”

Stags will come up against striker Will Swan, who they sold to Crawley last month.

“It will be nice to see Will,” said Clough.

“I have not really seen him since he left. I didn't have the opportunity to say a proper cheerio to him.

“So it will be nice to catch up with him and I hope he is settling in well – and I hope he doesn't score against us.”