After today’s deserved 2-1 victory, Mansfield Town manager Nigel Clough was pleased to see his team maintain their perfect start to the league season with their first-ever triumph at Salford City.
He said that his squad needed to display a different aspect of their play this afternoon because the Ammies were controlling possession.
He remarked, “It was about time we won here.”
“We are quite happy with our victory, and we have now gone 16 games without a loss in the league—more than a third of the way through the season.
“Compared to much of the season, I felt that today’s performance was significantly different.
“We had to give up and concede quite a bit of ground and possession as Salford are very good on the ball.
“Once we got to grips with it after about 20–30 minutes, I thought we dealt with their threats and looked for a threat ourselves on the break.
“If we’d gotten that third goal on the break, it would have made things a bit easier for us late on.
“We said at halftime we needed to show different qualities today.
“We needed to stop the opposition from playing and get a foot in, but we are not a very good team at tackling. We don’t have those sorts of players, so everyone needs to do a little more.
“It’s great to send the supporters home happy. I just said to the lads that there are not many clubs you will play for throughout your career where on a dark, cold November afternoon they will come and sell out the away end and give us that sort of backing.”
Jordan Bowery curled in a superb opening goal for Mansfield.
“It was a brilliant goal, and he is so valuable for us. He’s played right back and center half or us, and all of a sudden we needed him up front for a coupe of games,” said Clough.
“He just cut inside. He has done it in training a couple of times, and we keep encouraging him to shoot. He doesn’t consider himself a real goal scorer, but when he does things like that, maybe he should.
“The second goal came at a time when, for the first time in the game, we really got the ball down, knocked it around, and had a bit of possession. It was a great cross, and Davis (Keillor-Dunn) was in there.
“They were two very good goals, as Salford’s was too. It was a brilliant cross and a brilliant header. It was very difficult to stop.”
Keeper Christy Pym made a superb save to deny Matty Lund from close range, and Clough said, “Otherwise, Christy has not had that much to do. They had a lot of situations, but we got good blocks in and defended well. Our shape was good.
“He has had more to do in the last couple of weeks than he’s had in the last two months, but he is reliable. He is a very competent and experienced goalie who is probably in his prime at his age.”
Clough gave an update on the injured trio of Stephen McLaughlin, Ollie Clarke, and Lucas Akins.
“Stephen McLaughlin is out with a groin strain and will be out for three to four weeks,” he said.
“We had him down to play for 55–60 minutes on Tuesday, but we were tempted to take him off at halftime, which is really frustrating.”But he responded, “No, I feel fine.” After training and playing against Wrexham, we told him to give it another five or ten minutes to see how he did. Five minutes later, he started to feel pain in his groin. It’s simply unlucky.Ollie’s thigh injury will take him three or four weeks as well.
“Lucas felt a little off following his minor surgery on Monday.
“This week, he is getting a mask fitted, and we’ll check on him before Saturday.”
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