Mansfield Town moving in the right direction

“We are in a good place,” he said. “The youth team haven’t lost a game yet. The whole infrastructure is moving forward and the big thing for me is that the focus of the people in the club is one of progress and improvement. We are all on the same page.

“We have high quality and qualified people working in every area from the cleaners to the people who cook the food and the groundsman. Everybody is upping their game and to be successful that’s what you have to do.

“We are a really progressive club at the minute. Sometimes you can talk about having that or this in place, but you’ve got to see the fruits and results of that. Actions speak louder than words and at the minute that department as well as the first team area is growing.

“We have someone with the youth team now in John Dempster who has been the professional game all his career and knows the game inside out.

“His staff are top quality coaches, as qualified as you can be, one of them has worked for the FA for years. They are pushing boundaries and the club is going to have to stay up with that.

“The good thing for me is that the people who run the club from day to day, the chairman, the board, they’ve got a real drive to stay with the focus and for the club to move forward and be successful.”

He added: “We’ve got some good kids. They shone last year for certain reasons.

“This year they’ve found it a bit tougher. The standard of the group has gone up and the intensity of the work has gone up, so they’ve had a little bit of a culture shock.

“But they’ve all gone out and done their little bits and they are training very, very well. They will get their time.

“The thing we need to do at this club is give these kids the time and the tools to be good, and then be great, and we will do that.