Resilient Mansfield host fierce Morecambe

Mansfield Town host Morecambe on Good Friday at the One Call Stadium with the amber and blues still in the top three and aiming for automatic promotion where as for Morecambe, three points would strengthen their position with the Shrimps certain to stay in League One for another season.

In their last league outing the Stags faced an away trip to a tricky opposition in Northampton. The amber and blues started the game extremely well, in the 11th minute left-back Mal Benning opened the scoring as he scored the goal directly from a corner.

The home side had most of the possession and dominated the match, they responded in the 69th minute a beautiful cross from youngster Scott Pollock was met by was met by a glancing header by Sam Foley which beat Stags keeper Conrad Logan.

The game ended 1-1, with Mansfield dropping to third in the table as for Northampton they stayed in 15th. Mansfield manager David Flitcroft, spoke on his sides togetherness and the spirit they showed in the 1-1 draw.

“We showed that resilience, togetherness and spirit,” he said.

“These boys are trying – you could argue they’re trying too hard and perhaps not being calm.

“It’s important when you do get it back, there’s a calmness and a composure. That’s what we’ll be working on this week with the players.

“It’s something that you work on in training. You can never recreate what they’ll be out here doing.”

Morecambe were at home in their last league fixture as they welcomed Grimsby Town to the Globe Arena.

A very slow game that didn’t feature many dangerous chances in the first-half had a very interesting last ten minutes.  A penalty scored by Morecambe’s Aaron Collins opened the scoring in the 80th minute but, Grimsby responded just before the end of the match in the 88th minute when Charles Vernam secured a point for the the Mariners.

Morecambe defender Sam Lavelle said he was “frustrated’’ not to keep a clean sheet in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Grimsby. He said:

“The game itself was similar to the Crawley game in many ways.

“It was quite a scruffy match but we would have taken a 1-0 win without a doubt.

“To concede the way we did was frustrating because we pride ourselves on clean sheets and in some ways, as a defender I’d have preferred a 0-0 point.

“The good thing was though that it was another point and with the results around us going our way it took us 10 points clear with four games to go and that bit closer to safety.’’

When the two teams faced off earlier in the season, the Stags beat the Shrimps 1-0 with both teams looking to have won the game Neal Bishop’s goal in the 36th minute secured that all three points would be taken by the Stags in the early part of the season.

Team News

The Stags will be without forwards Craig Davies, Nicky Ajose and Jordan Graham for the game. Long-term absentees Hayden White and Bobby Olejnik will also miss out. The game will come too soon for defender Ben Turner, who has been struggling with a recent calf problem.

For the Shrimps, A-Jay Leitch-Smith could miss out with a small injury.