Back on track Mansfield face survival hopeful Cambridge United

Mansfield Town host 19th Cambridge United at the One Call Stadium with Mansfield still hunting down a spot to go automatically into League One.

Cambridge are fighting for every point and could upset Mansfield as the team is nine points ahead of relegation with only six games left in the season, so the match definitely lacks any ‘end of season’ slowdown factor.

Last time out in the league, Cambridge beat promotion aiming Bury 3-0 away from home. First half strikes from Alex Jones and David Amoo and a late second half strike from George Maris secured the three points for United. With the travelling fans very happy with their teams performance, United manager Colin Calderwood reacted on his teams fantastic performance against third placed Bury.

He said:

“It’s huge, I think, and probably, with the opposition we were playing, everyone expected us to lose, I probably mentioned that after the game on Saturday,” the U’s head coach explained.

“It was very,very pleasing from all the staff’s point of view, but really it’s a credit to all the players.

“They’ve really ran those extra miles tonight. The heat we had on Saturday wasn’t here and I think that helped.”

Mansfield played their last league game on Saturday and were victorious in a great contest against a play-off rival in Exeter. CJ Hamilton opened the scoring in the 20th minute for Stags to start a fantastic first half-half for the amber and blue. A minute later disaster struck when the Grecians equalised through a goal scored by Matt Jay levelled the score at 1-1. Hamilton gave Stags the lead again in the 33rd minute and a second-half brace from Tyler Walker gave Mansfield all three points.

Mansfield boss David Flitcroft, spoke about his team needing to add onto their win against Exeter and to keep focus on their aim of promotion:

“We’re going to respect Cambridge like we respect every single opponent. We’ll put the same work into them that we did for Exeter, that’s my philosophy on respect.

“Being super professional and super focused [will get us over the line for promotion]. [We need] a desire and commitment to want it more than anything you want in life at the minute.

“We have a brilliant opportunity and are in a really good place. The group understand how important being successful is at this football club.

“It’s about keeping that focus and making sure that the players are going out prepared. We have to enjoy this and embrace it. We have to enjoy the positive movement we’ve had for over a year now.”

Last time out these two played against each other in the league was in mid-September. The two teams drew against each other 1-1 an early first-half goal from Danny Rose was cancelled out by a late second-half strike from George Maris splitting the points between the two sides.

Team News

Mansfield Town will check on the fitness of key trio Jorge Grant, Neal Bishop and Ryan Sweeney ahead of Saturday’s crucial visit of Cambridge United. Where as Bobby Olejnik, Jordan Graham, Hayden White, Craig Davies and just announced Nicky Ajose are out for the rest of the season.

Cambridge United have Reggie Lambe at the risk of being suspended if booked again in this fixture. Skipper Gary Deegan is doubtful again after being subbed off against Colchester due to back spasms and did not feature in the Bury match so he is unlikely to feature in the fixture.