Winless run is like a runaway train says Mansfield Town manager Nigel Clough ahead of Burton trip

With 11 players in the treatment room, Stags' fine start to their first season back in League One after promotion has soured after nine defeats and a draw in the last 10 games ahead of this Saturday's crucial clash at Burton Albion.

“It's like a runaway train – it is difficult to stop once you get into this,” he said.

“And it is all through football – it is all so fragile, which I said when we had just won four out of five.

“Manchester City are fragile at the moment from having been incredible.

“The best manager in the world is struggling to stop that fragility. He has some of the best players in the world.

“Luton were battling away in the Premier League last season and were fantastic. They can't win a game in the Championship now to save their lives.

“Middlesbrough were in the play-offs and have now lost five on the spin.

“It's the same down the road at Derby. It is very difficult to reverse.

“We have to just keep working at it and stick to our principles as everything that we were doing earlier in the season we are still doing. It wasn't wrong then and it's not wrong now.

“Everyone has just got to give a little bit more and try to get a break.”

This is also seen as being one of the strongest League Ones in history this season.

“It is very difficult for teams with smaller squads to sustain it,” said Clough.

“I spoke to a similar sized club to us who said last season their budget was 12th in League One.

“And if they wanted to maintain that position of 12th this season they would have had to spend 68 per cent more.

“Once you get the teams that have come down from the Championship like Birmingham, Huddersfield and Rotherham, then you get Wrexham and Stockport coming up plus other clubs massively increasing their expenditure, that's what you get.

“It is an incredibly competitive league – there are no bad sides.

“It is over 46 games too. We've only played 32.

“We didn't get carried away at Christmas, we didn't get carried away when we were third in the league and we are certainly got getting carried away now we are struggling.

“Leagues just even out and 90 per cent of the teams will finish where their budget says they will finish.

“Generally over 46 games the table does not lie. They are 46 bloody hard games over nine months and at the end of it you find out the truth of how good you are.”