Mansfield Town miss out on transfer targets but Nigel Clough happy with back-up arrivals

Knowing his defensive department needed strengthening, Clough had done much work over recent weeks, but had to change direction at the last minute.

“We just missed out on a couple that we'd been working on,” he said.

“We were quite disappointed we lost out.

“One club changed their mind, so we can't do anything about that.

“We had agreed terms and everything with the player, but the club wouldn't let him go.

“With the second one, we lost out to a League One club who obviously have much bigger resources than us.”

Instead, Nartey has joined on loan from Burnley until the end of the season and fellow defender Forrester on loan from Stoke City until January.

“They will give us some much needed cover first of all and also vie for a starting place,” said Clough.

“Losing James Perch for an indefinite period is a huge blow for us, so we definitely needed to strengthen that area.

“Ideally we would have a liked a little bit more experience there.

“But we had these two lads in the background and we just pressed the button on them when we didn't get the others.”