Slew bidding to become a Stag

But his signing would be in addition to the striker and attacking central midfield player already being pursued by Stags boss Steve Evans with news on them expected by the weekend.

Trialist Slew was a surprise inclusion in Saturday’s highly entertaining 3-2 opening home pre-season friendly against Sheffield Wednesday, playing the last 26 minutes, and Evans is an admirer of the 24-year-old.

“Jordan is a young man who did great last year with 35/36 starts at Plymouth and played wide in a lot of those games, but proved a real asset,” said Evans.

“He scored their winner here at the One Call Stadium when he ran away from Jammer (Jamie McGuire).

“He lives locally. He is only 25-30 minutes away from the stadium and we said we’d have a look at him and that’s what we are going to do until the weekend.

“We’ll give him some minutes on the pitch as opposed to five or 10 minute cameo appearances, which is difficult.

“It has to be said he has trained particularly well.

“Can we do something if we want to do it? Yes, absolutely. Are we ready to do it? No, we need to see more.”

Meanwhile Evans continues to pursue his two main targets but the deals, being concluded by Stags’ CEO Carolyn Radford, are currently in limbo.

“We are still waiting. It’s like buying a house – we are in a bit of a chain,” said Evans.

“We are quite confident the chief executive has come to an agreement for one of them and is close on another.

“But being in a chain, their clubs have to go out and get their targets, so we have done our bit. They are trying to get their players in and it depends on that.

“We will give it a few more days and if they’ve not got something positive to report we’ll have to turn to other names on our list.

“But, as I said two weeks ago, if we go with what we’ve got now I would be pleased. We have got a fantastic squad.”

Despite the appearance of former England U19 international Slew this week, Stags fans won’t be watching their usual glut of trialists pre-season and trying to guess their identities.

Evans explained: “I wouldn’t say we’ll be seeing much in the way of trialists.

“We may get the odd phone call from an agent who was perhaps thinking his player was going to land a job in League One or the Championship and he’s a very good player that would be good for us.

“That can always happen and you can never say never

“But I am not a trialist man., I don’t believe in having five or six trialists in just to use them.

“I see managers and coaches use kids all summer and then the week before the start of the season they tell them they are not going to offer them anything. I wouldn’t like that to be done to my son so I’m not going to do it to anyone else’s son.

“Jordan Slew is a possibility. We’ve got him in. Others that are not a possibility, we won’t bring them in.”

Stags continue their pre-season games at home to Middlesbrough tonight (Wednesday), away to Stamford on Friday and at home to Forest on Saturday before sending teams out to Gainsborough Trinity and Carlton Town on Tuesday night.