PRESSURE PILES ON STAGS BOSS
UNDER-FIRE John Dempster believes his misfiring Mansfield side need to win 17 of their remaining games to make the play-offs after defeat by Cheltenham.
The high-flying Robins were comfortable winners at Field Mill thanks to goals from Jonte Smith, Will Boyle and Alex Addai.
Dempster believes his side now face a challenging second-half of the season to make it into the top seven.
“I believe we’ve got a mountain to climb, but we’re not dead,” he said.
“I think we need 17 wins from the remaining 26 games. That’s how tough the challenge is to get in the play-offs. Stranger things have happened and had bigger mountains to climb.
“There will be a team that comes late, that always happens, but the way we’re playing at the minute it won’t be us. It is gut-wrenching.
“At times it was a decent League Two fixture but they scored two very poor goals and one on the break in an otherwise even game. I felt for the supporters.
“It’s the old cliché of both boxes. We’re leaking too many goals and not scoring enough and that’s a recipe for disaster.
“We haven’t seen enough character in this dressing room. Equally it’s up to me to get it out of the players.”
Home keeper Bobby Olejnik, making his first League Two appearance in over a year, denied Addai with his legs before Smith headed Cheltenham in front after 32 minutes. Olejnik made two more saves to keep out Addai shots as the visitors dominated proceedings.
Nicky Maynard was inches away from levelling just before the break, but fired wide of the far post and seven minutes into the second-half it was 2-0 as Boyle was left free to sent a diving header home from Chris Hussey’s free-kick.
Mansfield rarely looked like they would come back and Addai delivered the killer third after 86 minutes after being sent away by Ryan Broom on the break.
Robins boss Michael Duff hailed his side’s display. “That was a complete away performance. We scored three goals and could have scored several more and we defended well,” he said.
“Scott Flinders has hardly had a save to make. They did put us under some pressure.
“But they are a good team with some good players, make no mistake about that. So I thought we were excellent.
“Winning 3-0 away from home you’re going to struggle to pick things out to criticise. First half we could have used the ball slightly better. “I thought we hurt them in all sorts of areas today. I was really pleased with every facet of the game. We look a difficult side to beat.”