Nigel Clough vows Mansfield Town will keep fighting after defeat at Northampton Town

Mansfield slipped to a 2-0 defeat at Northampton to leave them 12 matches without a win.

And Clough admitted his side now desperately needed to rebuild confidence following a poor display.

Northampton Town 2 Mansfield Town 0

“The performance was bitterly disappointing and our endeavour to get a goal at any point during the game, we had the odd skirmish in their penalty area but nothing sustained,” he said

“We took a gamble moving Oli Hawkins from centre-half, where he’s been excellent, in order to try and get a goal today. But it didn’t work and we didn’t look like scoring for large periods of the game.

“We’re missing too many good players at the moment to get a result. We certainly weren’t anywhere near good enough to get back in the game.

“I don’t think we got the hard sprinting and closing down [today], which is our bottom line.

“We’re extremely low on confidence and we’re losing games. We’re absolutely on the floor. It’s just confidence.

“When you’re winning games everyone is buzzing, but when you’re losing, it’s a real test of character to give everything all over the pitch.

"We’ll slowly try to get the players back. But the bottom line is that we’ll work and work and work.

“We need to come to places like Northampton and grind out a 0-0, then you might get a penalty in the 85th or 86th minute and might even win it.

“But the bottom line is grinding it out like we did at Orient. With the players we have missing, I don’t think we’ll be playing anybody off the pitch like we did six weeks ago.

“We just keep battling. That’s all we can do.”

Mansfield host Port Vale on Tuesday, with Stephen Quinn and Tyrese Sinclair once again available for selection.

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