Morecambe 1-1 Mansfield Town (EFL League Two) 08.02.20

The Stags took a point from the Shrimps at the Globe Arena on Saturday as 23^rd hosted 21^st in the EFL League Two with both sides in the end frustrated but content as they bid to avoid the drop into the National Division.

Mansfield might have took the lead in the first half when Kelland Watts tried to nod past Mafoumbi in the home teams goal who did well to smother the opportunity.

In the second half Neal Bishop won the ball for Joe Riley who curled an effort goalward only for it to be headed off the line with the follow up volleyed well over by Maynard.

Riley however didn’t have to wait too long for his goal as a Benning free kick was headed powerfiully down by Kristian Pearce and as Mafoumbi dived low to his left to keep out he couldn’t do anything about the Stags smashing home the rebound from close range.

That should have been the catalyst to spur Mansfield on to victory but in blustery conditions beside the Irish Sea a left wing corner caused all sorts of problems and Kenyon with just four minutes to go got in front of his marker to level things up.

In the dying seconds things could have got much worse for Mansfield when Slew forced Olejnik to save when he should have scored before Phillips twice whisked crosses low across goal with the Stags defence doing well to clear danger.

In the end a point gained, the Stags disappointed from being in a winning position but at one one in the end lucky to come out finishing level.

Assistant Manager Joe Dunne after the game stating “In the end there was some heroic defending to preserve that point, but it shouldn’t have really come to that.”

“We feel that it’s a couple of points that we should have had in the bag again”

“However, there were a lot of positives in the second-half today. We worked our system and managed to get into it. But the difficulty of the last period of the match, we caused a lot of problems for ourselves.”

Stags: Olejnik, Watts, Pearce, Sweeney, Riley (Clarke 82), Bishop, Tomlinson, Benning, Charsley, Rose (Davies 90), Maynard (Hamilton 76).

*Main image @mansfieldtownfc Stags lucky in the end to take point but disappointed with the outcome.