Mansfield Town prepare for tough week

After three successive wins, Mansfield Town know they have a massive week ahead of them with a home clash with Bristol Rovers followed by long trips to Yeovil and Portsmouth.
Adam Murray.Adam Murray.
Adam Murray.

But, as long as no one gets complacent by recent results, manager Adam Murray believes his side can add to their impressive early points tally.

“It’s going to be a tough week,” admitted Murray. “We looked at it at the start of this week and prepared our workload to go into a three game week and they are three tough games, starting with Bristol on Saturday.

“We know they will bring a different challenge to us. We think we’ll be coming up against a different shape to what we’ve been used to playing against, so we will tweak our shape accordingly.

“But we’ve got good players and we know we can adjust to whatever we need to and a big part of this week is making sure our feet come back down to earth. We’ve had a couple of good results, but we keep saying that’s all it is. We need to keep this run going and we can only do that by our focus and our hard work.

“The boys have worked extremely hard over the last couple of days already and we will prepare again for Bristol today and the plans are already in place for Yeovil and Portsmouth.”

He added: “Whatever happens, we’ve had a super start to the season and we’ve probably blown everyone’s expectations of what they expected us to do in the first quarter of the season out of the window already.

“We are happy with our start but we know there is more in us. We are probably functioning at 70 per cent, that 30 per cent will be the 30 per cent that keeps us in the top group.

“It’s a very tough league this year and for us to be up there, we are very honoured. At the same time we need to keep the ridiculous intensity of our work.

“As soon as that drops, momentum in this game can switch very quickly. One minute you’re sitting on top of the mountain, next minute you’ve fallen off it.

“We need to make sure that doesn’t happen. But the boys are focused. Yesterday the boys came back in with a great mindset of ‘that’s done, now let’s move on to the next one’ and that’s the way we’ve got to be. We can’t afford to get complacent or rest on our laurels. We are always looking for that extra bit to get better.”

Murray said he was happy to have little to do in the way of motivating his squad right now.

“Good players motivate themselves,” he said. “I don’t have to go in there and give a rallying cry every day. They do that themselves. They set high standards themselves. If they are not on it in training they pull each other in together and make sure it’s lifted. If they are not performing in games they do the same.

“The feeling of success in games getting three points, that’s all you need to motivate you. When you are picking wins up, you want more. That’s what winners do. They strive to be greedy and to achieve as high as they can.”