Nigel Clough highlights 'worrying pattern' he’s noticed at Mansfield Town following Sheffield United defeat
Mansfield Town’s Carabao Cup campaign ended just as it started following a first round defeat to Sheffield United.
Stags were unable to recreate last season’s FA Cup heroics this time round and it was the Blades who came out on top to progress into the next round of the tournament.
Stags shipped three goals at the One Call Stadium in a tough start to their 2026/27 season and Nigel Clough has highlighted a ‘worrying pattern’ he has observed since the start of pre-season.
“I think the final score-line was a little bit harsh on us. The nature of the goals we conceded were poor. I was very pleased with the first half performance, I thought there was a lot of good stuff and we created a few opportunities but couldn’t quite finish them,” the manager said in his post-match press conference.
“But it was the mistakes for the goals really, especially the first one. The one thing you can’t afford to do against better teams is give them goals and we gave them a couple today.”
Stags had a handful of opportunities but they were ultimately not enough to trouble Chris Wilder’s side, who progress to the second round of the Carabao Cup.
“There was enough encouragement there from our general play. But it’s been the same for the last three or four weeks, right from Retford where we conceded a poor goal. It’s been a little bit of a worrying pattern in pre-season so far, we’ve conceded too many soft goals from our point of view, which was of course, our strength from last season.”
Indeed, Stags’ strong defence was a key talking point last season and they finished with the joint-third best defensive record in League One.
“It’s a bit of head-scratcher,” Clough said. “We’ve got the same players, same personnel, same formation, so we need to get back and emphasise to them the need to clear the lines and defend properly at times.”
Mansfield Town were without Liam Roberts in their starting line-up on Sunday but he did feature on the bench and is ‘not far from returning’ to the action.
“He’s just kicking at the moment, we didn’t want to risk him today,” Clough said. “We’ve got a reserve squad game against Sheffield Wednesday on Wednesday, so there’s a chance he might play 45 minutes there if he comes through training on Tuesday, and then we’ll make a decision as we go on Saturday.”
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