Watertight Stags disappointed not to win derby

Mansfield Town boss Steve Evans said he was disappointed to only come away from the big derby at Notts County with a 0-0 draw.
Mansfield Town Manager Steve Evans 
Picture by Dan WestwellMansfield Town Manager Steve Evans 
Picture by Dan Westwell
Mansfield Town Manager Steve Evans Picture by Dan Westwell

He also said striker Yoann Arquin would have sleepless nights after missing the best chance of the game.

Stags comfortably shut out the struggling Magpies to go 373 minutes without letting in a goal.

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But their failure to finish two or three good chances cost them them the opportunity to extend County’s losing streak to 11.

“We come away disappointed, we can’t hide that,” said Evans.

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“We have come a bit down the motorway in the last six or seven weeks, but we have got a long way down the motorway to go if we want to get in the top group.

“We can’t be happy with that result. We’ve made probably the only two real chances, one from a corner and one that Yoann Arquin misses that he will have sleepless nights over tonight and probably tomorrow.

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“I think we were the team trying to win the derby, but when they installed the takeover and appointed a new manager, you could see what it meant to their supporters. It’s a great football club and it was always going to be tough.

“Probably such is the measure of it, there are a lot of celebrations in the tunnels from the home side, so that’s what we are starting to achieve at Mansfield Town.”

Evans continued: “We missed a couple of simple chances. You can’t make the quality of chances we make and not take them.

“In the second half from an attacking point of view, we just lacked in the final third, hence the two changes late on.

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“Kevin Nolan quite rightfully wanted a clean sheet and a point. But a point is no good to me. You need three points to help you on the way to what we are trying to achieve.

“I think if we’d got the first goal we’d have won comfortably. I think the game played out like that. “We look at the whole game from 1pm and ask if we did enough, and the answer is probably no.”

However, defensively Mansfield are looking excellent and Evans said: “We are starting to see the benefits of the work on the training ground.

“We have a good shape and a good organisation and I don’t think our keeper had a save to make today. That is a compliment to the whole team, you defend from the front and attack from the back.”

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Part of that back four at Notts, making a sterling debut was on-loan Peterborough right back Hayden White.

“He’s a good player,” said Evans. “To only meet the lads for the first time yesterday and go into the back five and be as controlled as that was superb. He also made the best chance of the game.”

Evans will continue to add more players to the five already signed this month.

“We are trying to strengthen in three or four areas and there should be three or four players in here before the window shuts,” he said.

Stags took almost 3,500 noisy fans to the derby and Evans added: “It was a wonderful travelling support.

“For long periods of the game you only heard the Mansfield Town fans.”