Tough task ahead for the Stags as they face brilliant Bradford City at Valley Parade

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Mansfield Town travel to a blossoming Bradford City in midweek, hoping to make it back-to-back wins in League Two

After three consecutive defeats against Bolton Wanderers, Cambridge United and Harrogate Town, the Amber and Blues headed into the encounter against Morecambe with a burning desire to get all three points.

Nigel Clough’s men dominated proceedings from minute one and limited the promotion-pushing Shrimps to very few chances throughout the 90 minutes.

The breakthrough came four minutes before the interval through Jordan Bowery. Jason Law’s corner was cleared away by the Morecambe defence with Jamie Reid able to regain possession for the hosts.

Mansfield Town’s no. 19 laid the ball off to Stephen Quinn, who did very well to get past his marker and fired a cross into Bowery which the striker tucked into the back of the net to break the deadlock.

Substitute A-Jay Leitch-Smith had a golden opportunity to give the visitors an equaliser late on as a chipped ball over the top of the defence found the striker, but he was unable to provide the finishing touch as he missed the ball completely.

That victory saw the Stags move up to 16th, ten points adrift of the Play-Offs, and with Morecambe unable to get the win they slid down to fifth, four points off Cheltenham in the final automatic promotion place.

Connor Sellars and Mark Trueman have full transformed Bradford City with the Bantams close to the drop-zone before the duo took over.

Since joining the club as interim bosses back in December, the duo have delivered nine wins in 13 League Two matches and have been defeated once in that period when they fell to a 3-2 defeat against Exeter City.

The Yorkshire club looked for a fourth consecutive league victory last weekend when they travelled to the Banks’s Stadium to face a depleted Walsall side.

Levi Sutton opened the scoring just before half-time after a fantastic strike from outside the box. The 23-year-old took the shot on and saw his effort hit the underside of the crossbar and into the back of the net giving his side the lead as they headed into the interval.

Sutton turned provider in the second-half as he assisted the second goal. The former Scunthorpe man crossed the ball into Mansfield loanee Andy Cook, who chested the ball and slotted his shot past Liam Roberts to double the lead for the Bantams.

Dan Scarr scored in the 77th minute for the Saddlers after a corner came in and the defender was able to nod his effort off the post and into the goal, but that was not enough as Bradford ran out 2-1 victors that afternoon.

The last time the Stags were victorious at Valley Parade was back in 2008 after they beat the Bantams 2-1 in a League Two clash. With the Yorkshire side always in the higher divisions, Mansfield Town have not been able to play their opponents on Tuesday night regularly in recently

Last time out between the two sides, Bradford, under the stewardship of Stuart McCall, defeated Mansfield Town 3-1 who were still playing under Graham Coughlan.

The game started awfully for the Stags as within the first ten minutes the away side were in the lead. Connor Wood’s corner was not caught by Marek Stech as he dropped the ball into the back of his own goal.

Wood was finally able to get his goal after Harry Pritchard flicked Clayton Donaldson’s cross into the path of the defender who calmly slotted the ball into the back of the net.

The game was essentially over in the 69th minute after Donaldson put his name on the scoresheet. Lee Novak back-heeled the ball brilliantly into the path of Wood who crossed the ball into the box for the experienced striker to fire into the back of the net.

Debutant George Lapslie was sent off in the 78th minute making the match even more forgetful for the side from NG18.

Andy Cook was able to get a consolation goal with five minutes of normal time remaining but it was too little to mount any serious comeback at the end of the match.

Mansfield have usually been on the losing side when it comes to matches at Valley Parade. In their all-time head-to-head, the Stags in 33 matches at Valley Parade have only tasted victory in nine of those games and will be hoping that the negative record in Yorkshire won’t affect them in this one.

The immense form the Bantams have been in will fill them with all the confidence in the world that they can complete a league double over the Stags as they begin a late surge for the Play-Offs.

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