Mansfield Town boss Nigel Clough believes his two latest striker additions may have scored two of the most important goals of the season as Stags' fight to make sure of League One safety.

And Clough stressed he subscribed to the Neil Warnock theory that you cannot have too many strikers on your books.

“Strikers are invaluable and the option to throw different ones on,” he said.

“I know Neil Warnock always used to have six or seven of them all the time – maybe too many.

Dom Dwyer celebrates his winner against Bristol Rovers FC at the Memorial Stadium. Photo credit : Chris & Jeanette Holloway / The Bigger Picture.media

placeholder image — Dom Dwyer celebrates his winner against Bristol Rovers FC at the Memorial Stadium. Photo credit : Chris & Jeanette Holloway / The Bigger Picture.media

“He said you could never have enough strikers – and you do need them.

“A couple would be in form and a couple weren't or had knocks or whatever. But to have the options of Jordan Rhodes and Dom Dwyer on our bench last weekend was great.

“They have probably scored us the two most important goals of the season.

“Jordan got us the equaliser at Stevenage which earned us a valuable point and Dom scored us the winner on Saturday at Bristol Rovers.

“They could be the two goals that keep us in the league - and that is how important strikers like that are.”

He continued: “We appreciate the chairman letting us bring Dom in as a free agent.

“He said do you think you really need him? I said I think we do with the situation we are in. If we'd been halfway up the league and comfortable then we probably wouldn't have done it.

“In our situation I think we really needed both him and Jordan.

“They are players who can get you a goal out of next to nothing as Jordan did at Stevenage.

“We were debating at half-time on Saturday which one to put on.

“We wanted to move Will Evans out to the left and we just thought it was the sort of game more suited to Dom's ability being up there on his own just to try to get something out of nothing.

“In the end it came from a mistake.”

With so little recent match action Dwyer is struggling to play successive games so he was left out for last night's 2-1 home defeat by in-form Charlton Athletic but will be back for Saturday's trip to Huddersfield Town.