Flitcroft delight as win over Wolves sets Mansfield Town on the Wembley trail

Bury’s late leveller in Saturday’s 2-2 draw rocked Mansfield but tonight they held their nerve to qualify for the knock-out stages and Flitcroft said: “I am delighted with the performance and result.

READ THE FULL MATCH REPORT“I thought the boys’ commitment and application tonight was really good.

“Any competition is important and there is a chance of getting to Wembley. I have been and it’s a phenomenal place.

“As a League Two club this competition gives us an opportunity to get there.

“The most important thing is winning football matches. I have personally been very disappointed only achieving two points in the last two games with 30 attempts at goal, though not enough on target.

“The players were hurting after the Bury match and it’s great sometimes to get that out your system early so you have not got a week stewing on it.

“There was only a thousand fans in and that can sometimes be difficult. But you are playing for the shirt and for the town

“I was disappointed we didn’t get the clean sheet as I though Conrad Logan deserved one with his performance.”

Flitcroft was impressed by the Wolves youngsters.

“They gave us some problems tonight,” he said. “But they are going to do as they have some quality in there.

“They have powerful players – quick players – they think quick and are technically good. If you’re not switched on they can hurt you.

“First half was as one-sided a showing as you’re going to get in this tournament and I was really delighted how we got about them. We could easily have put it to bed in the first 10 minutes.”

Wing back Will Atkinson missed two close range headers in the first three minutes before Jacob Mellis fired them ahead on four minutes and Flitcroft smiled: “I have no idea what I am going to do with Will Atkinson’s head.

“It must be the shape of it. I think it must be in his contract he can’t score with his head!

“We were hurting them with crosses from different angles. It’s when we stopped crossing it we didn’t hurt them enough. There were good lessons to learn.

“Their goal gave them a lift and gave them hope. But we saw it out a lot better.”

He was also delighted to see Hayden White come back from injury and get through the game.

“The medical staff got in a lot of work on Hayden White and he got 90 minutes in which allowed us to look at that back three combination. It’s one we’ve not utilised yet.”