Stay patient says boss Nigel Clough as Mansfield Town prepare for two huge six-pointers against rivals Northampton Town and Forest Green Rovers

Stags face Northampton Town at home on Saturday, who are currently in the third and final automatic promotion spot and just three points ahead of Mansfield, who have two games in hand, before a long trip to face table-topping Forest Green on Tuesday.

Stags are aiming for a new club record of 11 home league wins in a row on Saturday and Clough said: “If we can get something from the home game with Northampton, that's vital.

“It will be one of our biggest of the season, no doubt.

“It will feel similar to the Exeter one a couple of weeks ago, when we played on the Friday night.

“If you can get a positive result against one of your rivals, who are currently in an automatic spot, it makes a huge difference.

“Then Tuesday at Forest Green will be our most difficult game of the season.

“It's really unfortunate how the fixtures have fallen with so many away games in one spell and also the fact we've got to play the best team in the league twice in your last eight games. But we can't do much about that.

“I certainly hope come the last game of the season, they are already celebrating promotion.”

Clough has told his players, no matter what, to hold their nerve with his style of football which yielded late wins at Rochdale and Oldham.

“It is a matter of not changing,” he said. “You have to keep doing the right things and you're in with a shout of getting a late goal.

“That's always been the case. When I started out at Forest we had the likes of Ian Bowyer and Garry Birtles saying you keep doing the right thing to the end, irrespective of the position of the game.

“We don't want people shooting from 40 yards because you're 1-0 down.

“You keep playing, you keep getting the ball into the right areas and sometimes it will work and you'll get a goal, sometimes it won't. But it won't if you start doing daft things.”

With promotion expectations rising by the day and only five weeks of the season left, Clough said having experienced James Perch back in the side could be a key factor to success.

“I think he is going to be a key player for us in the last 10 games, on and off the pitch,” he said.

“He is the one that exhumes the calmness that you need in these situations. We get a little bit panicky at times, whacking the ball when we don't need to.

“When we relax and play like we can, we put together some very good moves. We've just got to more of that.

“It is going to help. I am not sure of the 18 or 19 in the current squad, how many have actually been in this situation with nine games to go where we have a chance of finishing in the top seven. There's not many.”

It will be roadworn Stags’ first home game in six with two more gruelling away trips to follow.

Mansfield will be without Jamie Murphy (hamstring) and there are doubts on Ollie Clarke, George Maris, Matty Longstaff and Stephen McLaughlin.

Cobblers boss Jon Brady has challenged his squad to try and build on the performance they delivered in last weekend's 2-0 win over Hartlepool United.

“Overall we were pleased with last Saturday and it was the type of performance we feel we can deliver, we just want to deliver that type of performance more consistently," he said.

“We had options off the bench on Saturday and that’s something we’ve not always had this season.

“The subs that came on made a real difference and that was pleasing.

“It was good to have Josh Eppiah back and hopefully by the end of next week we will have a few more back as well.

“Because of Josh’s history we have to manage him a bit differently but he got a good 25 minutes in on Saturday and he reported back well on Monday morning.

“Josh is a livewire and he made a real impact on Saturday. He needs to be better starting games but that is really down to his match fitness and the lack of game time he’s had.

“We’ve got seven games to go and we approach each game on its own merit.

“We will be looking to win on Saturday but whatever the result there will still be opportunities from now to the end of the season.

“We’ve got our targets and we know what we need to do.

“We’ve got to play the way we know we can and if everyone in the team is on form we know we can get results.”

He added: “We’ve had some good results against the top sides away from home, we’ve won at Exeter and Tranmere and we can take huge confidence from that.

“We know we can do it, we’ve been there and done it we have just got to produce that again on Saturday.

“Mansfield have an excellent squad of players and they recruited well in January, they’ve been on a good run but it’s down to what happens on the day and how we approach the game and what we do.”