Nigel Clough gives his take on Mansfield Town's friendly win at Oldham Athletic

Nigel Clough admits he’s delighted with Mansfield Town’s pre-season campaign after they closed it today with a 3-0 win at Oldham Athletic.
Rhys Oates opens the scoring for Mansfield Town at Oldham Athletic.Rhys Oates opens the scoring for Mansfield Town at Oldham Athletic.
Rhys Oates opens the scoring for Mansfield Town at Oldham Athletic.

A Rhys Oates brace and a goal from Oli Hawkins wrapped up the win to leave Stags with four wins and a draw from their five matches, which saw them score 12 times and concede just once.

He told iFollow Stags: “We’ve had five good games. We’re very pleased defensively with the fact we’ve only conceded the one goal, a corner against Rotherham.

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“We’ve got away with a couple against Sheffield United, and we did again today.”

“We kept a clean sheet again and I thought we scored three very good goals.

“The main chances they [Oldham] had came through our mistakes - a little bit through fatigue - but it good to get the final pre-season match out the way.”

Clough was also quick to praise the impact of the club’s summer signings.

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“Will Swan looked very good today,” he added. “Hiram Boateng, again, was excellent as was Christy Pym.

“The players that we’ve brought in have improved us and that’s the aim.”

It leaves Stags in good shape going into Saturday’s tough curtain-raiser at Salford City, with Clough confident Mansfield have the squad to be once again be in the promotion mix.

“The aim is to improve on last season’s achievements, that’s it,” he said. “We made the play-off getting from second from bottom to Wembley.

“Hopefully, we won’t have that extended poor run and we’ll be there or thereabouts. I think we’ve got the squad to do that.”

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