Chris Beardsley return is big boost for Mansfield Town

Beardsley has been recovering from a stress fracture in his shin and, despite getting his nose broken in a brief substitute’s appearance at Barnet two Saturdays back, he is in the squad for tomorrow’s visit of Leyton Orient and a vital cog in Murray’s machine.

“One thing we have missed over the last couple of months is the Chris Beardsley-type of centre forward and it’s good to have him back,” said Murray.

“When he did get injured it went a bit under the radar - it was a stress fracture in his shin which has taken time to heal.

“We have to manage him and his training loads, and it will take him a bit to get to where he can play for 70/80/90 minutes.

“But what he does do – you saw against Barnet, he came on for five minutes, got his nose broke, smashed three or four people, held the ball up and he takes a lot of pressure off the other forward boys.

“You look at the forward line we’ve signed, you’ve got Greeny (Matt Green) who goes off movement and pace and obviously goalscoring and finishing, Adi (Yussuf) is the same kind of player though a bit more of a link-up, Westy (Craig Westcarr) is the brains behind the operation and Beardo does the exact opposite to all of them.

“He does the ugly stuff. He is an aerial threat and we haven’t had that. When teams have parked the bus and we can’t break them down with our football, sometimes you’ve got to put it in there and say right we’ll mix this up for 10 minutes now. We’ve not had that option.

“At Northampton we tried putting Taff (Ryan Tafazolli) up there for the last 10 minutes, but he was offside eight times in two minutes.

“To have Beardo back with the group gives you another option which is really good.”