Nigel Clough's keeping it calm in the camp as Mansfield Town prepare for Salford City trip

Stags go to Salford City on Bank Holiday Monday before hosting already-promoted Forest Green Rovers five days later, knowing that an automatic promotion place is the biggest prize on offer, or at the very least the guarantee of a play-off spot.

And Clough is keen to keep his side relaxed in the lead up to the encounters.

He said: “We’ve tried to keep it calm all week and we tried to at half-time on Tuesday against Stevenage we weren’t playing very well.

"There’s no point in getting panicky at this stage, we have to stay as calm and composed as we can going into the last two games.

"We’ve tried to do that for 44 league games so we’re not going to change now."

Clough said his side will be going for the victory at Salford, to put them in as strong a position as possible going into the Rovers match.

He said: "A win is the only thing that guarantees us a play-off place and also gives us a shout going into the final day of automatic promotion, so that’s the plan.

"When you look at our results people will say we haven’t had enough draws and if we’d turned a few of the defeats into draws then we’d certainly be in a better position, but not at the expense of going for the wins.

"I think that’s been on of the strengths, we’ve won a lot of games this season, especially at home, so we need to keep doing the same.”

Salford’s away form has been better than at home all season, with a large number of draws on their own patch too, but Clough won’t underestimate the task, also highlighting his belief that if City don’t go up this year, their moment won’t be far away.

He said: "Salford are still more than capable. I think they’ve gone on a little run recently which has put them back into the picture and they’ll know they need to win without a doubt to still stand a chance going into the final day.

"So it’s going to be an interesting one and we’re going to take a few supporters up there so want the lads to play just as we did in our last away game at Carlisle. We’ll take that standard of performance every day.

"I think Gary [Bowyer] has done a brilliant job this season and I think next season they’ll come up with a serious challenge.

"[The money spent] shows how serious they are about taking the club up the leagues.

"All you have to do is look at the teams who have just been promoted from League Two, they’ve been knocking at the door for the last four or five years and eventually got there.”