Nigel Clough warns it might take some time for Mansfield Town to get back into their stride

Nigel Clough's side made it five straight wins following Jamie Reid's late winner at Southend United on January 23.

But four consecutive postponements - all due to waterlogged pitches - have come at the wrong time for in-form Stags.

Mansfield returned to action last night in a re-arranged schedule at Walsall, a whole 17 days after that victory at Roots Hall.

And Clough is warning it may take some time before his Stags players can hit those levels again.

“I know we will be raring to go,”he said. “Mentally and physically we have worked hard. We had a practice match on a bit of a muddy pitch on Saturday.

“The physical output for the first 70 minutes was 96 per cent of the physical output they would put in during a game.

“So you can see how much they put in and how much they are rating to go.

“Little doubts will creep in though and we have to put those out of the players minds.

“Let’s use it (the break in games) to our advantage. We are raring to go, but we need to get back into our routine. It will not so much be tomorrow night but the game after that and the game after that. ”

Clough also admitted a sense of frustration at the ad-hoc nature of the recent lack of action, which has begun to resemble a mid-season winter break.

But with Stags going into matchdays expecting to play, it has left little chance to plan for a structured break.

“If you had said before that we were going to have this break we would have said ‘Brilliant, right, Tuesdays off, then we will come in and train.’

“But when you have games called off on the day you are just reacting to the situation. That has been the hardest part.

“Before you are trying not to think too much about what you might provisionally do if the game is off.

“We might even have gone away on a team bonding exercise. We are just trying to tick things over as best we can.”

Stags face Colchester United away on Saturday, before facing Bolton at home on Tuesday.