The Stags look to get a valuable victory as they host bottom of the league Grimsby Town

Credit: Mansfield Town FC

The amber and blues will look to build on their recent results as they host Paul Hurst’s Grimsby Town at at the One Call Stadium.

Nigel Clough’s side will try and replicate their fantastic goalscoring threat that they showed against Cheltenham Town when welcoming Grimsby Town on Saturday lunchtime.

Last time out for the Stags, they faced Carlisle United in a later League Two kick-off on Tuesday due to some of the away players being stuck in traffic.

Offrande Zanzala scored with the Cumbrians’ only shot on target in the match. Jon Mellish’s shot was saved with the forward firing the rebound into the back of the net to give Chris Beech’s side the lead in the 66th minute.

Stephen McLaughlin was able to rescue a point for Mansfield as the midfielder struck a fantastic free-kick that wrong-footed Magnus Norman and nestled into the back of the net.

The point saw the Stags retain 16th in League Two with Carlisle moving up to 11th as they look to find their form that once had them at the top of the table.

Grimsby have been poor and look destined to be relegated down to the National League as the pandemic has played a role in the downfall of the club.

With Ian Holloway leaving, the Lincolnshire club appointed Paul Hurst as manager with the hope that the ex-Shrewsbury manager could guide the club to survival.

One win in 16 matches doesn’t bode well for the Marines, but three draws in their last three matches is a decent way to start some sort of revival.

Their goalscoring ability seems to have completely vanished in this time having scored once in three league encounters, but on top of that managing to hold onto two clean sheets in that short space of time.

The Mariners held Tranmere to a 0-0 draw last time out and limited Keith Hill’s men to one shot on target in the whole match.

If fortunes are to look better for Grimsby, they certainly have to improve in the opposition box and simply score more goals as 24 strikes in the League Two season is the second-worst amount with the Mariners only ahead of relegation-battling Southend United by three goals.

In the 21st century, Mansfield have won 50% of their league encounters against Grimsby at the One Call Stadium with the Stags hoping to increase that percentage in their favour.

The last time these sides met each other was at Blundell Park back in December with the sides taking a point each from the encounter.

Ira Jackson Jr’s first goal in the Football League saw the Mariners take the lead in the 63rd minute. Nicky Maynard’s successful penalty saw the Stags grab a point away from home as they went on to find their feet and started a fantastic run of five consecutive league victories not long after.

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