Adam Murray targets top seven finish for Mansfield Town ahead of York City trip

Although the Stags have only won one of their first five games, Murray has seen enough to fill him with confidence they can have a good season.

“We honestly do believe we should have had eight or nine points so far which would have been a terrific start,” he said.

“We need to keep the belief in how we are doing things. We need to improve on a lot of things, but there are a lot of plus points too.

“We have put some really good building blocks in, and if we get something on Saturday we have hit our targets for the month which is what we set out to do.

“That puts us on course to be in the top seven. We are not looking at anything else. We are not looking at mid-table, not looking at just surviving.

“I want this team and this club to push forward this season and that takes hard work, a lot of discipline and a lot of belief from everybody.

“What we have got to do is keep the focus which I honestly believe at this minute this football club has. We all want to succeed and break into that top seven. I think people are seeing the bigger picture which makes me really happy.”

On the York game, he said: “We will prepare right and it’s going to be a good game for us.

“I travelled to Swansea last night to watch them so we know what we are in for and we are going there to win, make no bones about that. We are not going there to get an awayday draw, we are going there to win.”

Murray had studied York’s previous three games, so did he learn anything new from the Swansea Capital one cup game?

“I learned it takes a lot of fuel getting to Swansea” he said. “I think it was a different kind of game. Obviously they made a couple of changes and changed the shape a bit last night.

“But it was a good outing. The way York play, we may have to tweak things our end as they do play a difficult shape to come up against.

“But it’s about us on Saturday. We are confident. We are going into it full of beans. We will have a lot of energy and we are looking forward to the game.

“Last night they played no centre forwards and loads of midfielders but it was effective and at times they put Swansea on the back foot, so it will be an interesting game on Saturday.

“They are an effective League Two team. They are very organised, physical and will give us a stern test. We need to be on our game and carry on the performances we’ve had – and we are starting to put together little bits and bobs from each game.

“We had a meeting with the lads yesterday about continuing the belief of what we are about.

“When we do get to the full package of what I believe we can bring to this league I believe we will be a force. At the minute we have seen bits and bobs in the games we’ve had so far and when that all comes together, I do believe we are going to affect this league.

“We are looking to the boys now to understand that we have got certain strengths in our team but we must set about games to enable those strengths to come out.

“We have some excellent footballers in our team and we need to start dictating games a bit better.”