Nigel Clough’s keen to look forward after Mansfield’s home humbling

Mansfield boss Nigel Clough told his players to forget Saturday’s 4-1 home mauling by promotion rivals Crawley and quickly move on.

Stags’ heaviest defeat of the Sky Bet League Two campaign saw them drop out of the top three.

However, a fourth successive win on the road for Crawley strengthened their hopes of making the play-offs.

“Everything that could go wrong did go wrong on the pitch today in terms of our performance,” said Clough.

“Defensively we are going to be a bit vulnerable with so many defenders out injured.

“But we looked more like a team fighting relegation rather than one chasing promotion, which was the most worrying part.

“But it’s finished now. As bad as it’s been, it’s gone once that final whistle blows and there is nothing you can do about it.

“All we can do is look towards the last five games and concentrate on them. We have to win on Tuesday to stay in the race – end of story.

“We’ve taken one point out of nine. When you’re chasing at the top of the league you can’t afford to do that at this stage of the season.

“But it’s still in our hands, which is the only positive thing.”

Crawley made the perfect start as Kellan Gordon fired in a low shot against his old club after just four minutes.

On 24 minutes Nicholas Tsaroulla bagged the second after a great run by Ronan Darcy.

The game was over when the visitors netted twice in as many minutes after the break.

In the 55th minute bad defending allowed Danilo Orsi to steer in the third and, soon after, Klaidi Lolos raced down the centre to add the fourth.

Sub Hiram Boateng did grab a late consolation 10 minutes from time but Crawley boss Scott Lindsey said: “That was a big result for us today.

“I thought we scored some really good goals and I’m clearly delighted.

“I can’t ask for too much more with a result like this at Mansfield, who are a really good side

“That’s the quietest I’ve ever known Mansfield fans.They are usually really noisy, and I could hear our fans over them pretty much from the start of the game, right to the end.

“I know we were 2-0 up but I wasn’t happy with our first half performance. I made that really clear to them.

“I felt we turned the ball over a lot and we’re not usually like that. We are usually more secure with the ball.

“Second half I thought we were outstanding and managed things much better.

“The players have been outstanding and they were outstanding again today with the effort they put in.

“Confidence is really high. If anything I’ve got to cool them off a little bit. We can’t wait to get to Wrexham on Tuesday now.”