Stags players warned as Crawley inquest finally takes place

This week's snow saw Mansfield Town's inquest into Saturday's disappointing 2-0 defeat at Crawley Town postponed until today.
Stags manager Steve Evans.  Photo by Glenn Ashley.Stags manager Steve Evans.  Photo by Glenn Ashley.
Stags manager Steve Evans. Photo by Glenn Ashley.

But the wait had not tempered boss Steve Evans’ anger at the performance and he warned his players to expect changes against Yeovil this Saturday.

“I wanted to get them in Sunday/Monday but the weather was so bad around the country and I took the advice of the Police to tell our players to stay at home,” said Evans.

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“But we had a team meeting this morning and they were left in no doubt that what happened on Saturday for large periods of that game can’t be repeated. It wasn’t acceptable.

“We now have 21/22 lads competing for a place on Saturday and no one is save from execution.

“There are no excuses. It was a poor performance. As a manager you look and say if you can get eight or nine players playing well the Stags will win. If you have eight or nine below form you’ll get beat.”

Players hoping to put things right at the weekend may not get the chance.

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“There will be a lot of players with points to prove but some, unfortunately, may have a point to prove sitting up in the stand with a big coat on as they won’t be involved,” said Evans.

“There will be changes on Saturday. There’s got to be.

There is a saying - if you don’t do something about it then you do nothing about it. That’s not me.

“We are 24/25 games in as a group and we are going to get into a period very soon, maybe in the next four weeks, when we say these errors should be out our system.”

Evans knew what quality Crawley had from recent results.

“Crawley beat Exeter very comfortably, they drew with Luton and should have beaten them, and they went to Coventry and drew,” he said.

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“So it wasn’t a big surprise result when you actually break down their results. The big surprise is how poor we were.

“After the first 15 minutes Crawley were the better side. We seemed to lack energy, we seemed to lack being able to pass it, we seemed to be lacking in making decisions – very unlike us.

“Overall it was way, way short and we short-changed ourselves and we short-changed everyone.”

He added: “The boys just seemed flat and it was a poor day. There were probably only two or three players who got pass marks on Saturday – that’s how low the performance was.

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“There’s not been many like that. But there have been two or three and it’s one too many now.

“So it’s now about what can happen this week and getting ready for Yeovil on Saturday and trying to win a couple of games pre-Christmas. If we can do that we’ll be in the top four or five.”