Neal Bishop remains positive over Mansfield Town's automatic promotion hopes

Mansfield Town midfielder Neal Bishop remained positive after the Stags’ hopes of automatic promotion were hit by a 3-2 loss at Oldham Athletic on Easter Monday.
Neal Bishop gets on the scoresheet.Neal Bishop gets on the scoresheet.
Neal Bishop gets on the scoresheet.

The Stags, who had a last-minute equaliser by Danny Rose wrongly ruled out for offside, remain in the automatic promotion places with a potential winner-takes-all clash at MK Dons on the last day of the season after next Saturday’s home match against Stevenage.

Bishop, who scored a late second goal to give the Stags hope, said: "It’s in our hands with two to play – it’s something to relish and enjoy.

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"It is probably guaranteed to go down to the wire but it was probably destined to when were looking at this fixture 15, 20 games out.

"Do you want to be sat mid-table with nothing to play for? Where do you want to be? There’s only two teams in this division that would swap places with us out of 24 so that’s not a bad season for us."

Bishop admitted the Stags were not at their best in the first half as Oldham took a half-time 1-0 lead.

After the home side made it 2-0, Tyler Walker gave the Stags hope and then as the visitors again trailed by two goals, Bishop fired in a second.

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But he added: "It counts for nothing. It’ll all quickly be forgotten. The main thing is getting the frustration out of our system with a quick turnaround before our next game.

“We have to get it out of our system quickly because we’re still in the top three – destiny is still in our own hands.

“We know if we win our last two games we’ll be promoted.”