Mansfield Town look to dispatch Chorley in the First Round of the FA Cup

Mansfield Town are at home in the first round of the FA Cup against Chorley as they look to breeze past the National League outfit.

Mansfield Town will aim to make a bright start in the FA Cup this year as manager John Dempster wants a good run which may install confidence in the league.

Their opponents Chorley, lie at the bottom of the National League after only winning one match in 20 league games. They have only scored twice in eight games which hopefully the Stags can exploit and see a very open game from the two sides.

Team news

Manager John Dempster confirmed that striker Danny Rose could play some part in the fixture following a recent ankle injury, after returning to training this week.

The game will likely come too soon for defenders Hayden White and Krystian Pearce, though, along with frontman Craig Davies.

From the bosses

Stags’ boss John Dempster believes his side can use the Emirates FA Cup as a ‘springboard’ for their season, as the amber and blue did in the 2012/13 campaign, when an impressive cup run was followed by winning the Conference title:

“We’re going to give it everything to beat Chorley on Saturday,” he said. “They’re a side that are struggling in the league below, but are very physical.

“We’ll have to match them for attitude and application or it’ll be a tough afternoon. If we do that, we can progress to the next round.

“I think there’s a chance they’ll come here and sit in. It’s very difficult to say how they’ll play – our efforts will go into making sure our performance levels are where they need to be.

“We need to be positive and we need people behind us. People need to stay with us and we’ll need to shift the ball with pace.”

Chorley manager Jamie Vermiglio says his side are always underdogs but the whole squad will put everything into progressing:

“We’ve fallen at this hurdle the last two seasons against teams from League One. This time we’ve got to travel to play another higher ranked opponent, albeit one from League Two.

“We’re underdogs because of this, but this competition has proved time and time again that league position and form go out of the window during a one-off game.

“It would be huge for the club to reach the second round and the whole squad is ready to put everything on the line to give us a chance of progressing.”

Head-to-head

This will be the first competitive meeting between the Stags and the Magpies.