Stags & Notts Both Lose

Mansfield Town and Notts County both suffered 3-1 home defeats on Saturday afternoon, the former against Huddersfield Town in League One, and the latter to Colchester United in League Two.

At the One Call Stadium, Nigel Clough’s side found themselves three behind after a devastating, opening quarter hour, defeat seeing them slip to thirteenth in the table after sixteen games.

Meanwhile, beside the River Trent, and at Meadow Lane, Martin Paterson’s County side, who were looking to close the gap on the League Two leaders prior to kick-off, also conceded three, theirs coming after having taken an early lead.

Lee Grant’s Terriers raced into an early lead at Mansfield, shocking the Stags with the lead after just five minutes, Mickel Miller putting the ball to the back post for Bojan Radulovic to head back across and into the goal.

Shy of ten minutes later and the visitors had doubled their lead as Ben Wiles released Radulovic who, instead of taking it himself, played in Dion Charles who fired a right-footed effort past Roberts in the home goal.

A second goal in quick succession all but knocked the stuffing out of the Stags when Lasse Sorensen collected the ball in midfield, slopped his marker, and fired home, via a deflection, from the edge of the area.

With both sides creating chances, it would be the Terriers who’d go in at the break three goals to the good, and they continued to create upon the restart as well before Will Evans reduced the deficit just after the hour.

Deji Oshilaja lifted the ball to the left of the visitors’ box and Evans beat his marker to the ball and finished lowed past Owen Goodman inside the far post; home boss, Clough, made several changes in an attempt to get his side back into the game, but it was to no avail, with Lucas Akins, on for Joe Gardner shortly after Evans’ goal, heading over at the death.

MANSFIELD TOWN – Liam Roberts, Kyle Knoyle, Deji Oshilaja, Frazer Blake-Tracey, Stephen McLaughlin, Jamie McDonnell, Louis Reed (captain, Ryan Sweeny, 92), Aaron Lewis (Jordan Bowery, 75), Joe Gardner (Lucas Akins, 68), Will Evans (Dominic Dwyer, 75), Rhys Oates (Nathan Moriah-Welsh, 68)

Hosting Colchester United at Meadow Lane, it would be Paterson’s Magpies who’d take an early lead in the League Two encounter, Nick Tsaroulla’s cross being met by Tyrese Hall before cannoning off Kane Vincent-Young inside ten minutes.

The lead didn’t last long however, the U’s back on level terms before the quarter hour mark when Harry Anderson’s bending cross into the box, the ball comes back to the same player who is on-hand to lift the equaliser past Kelle Roos in the home goal.

Both sides created chances, but they went in level at ones-each at the break with Matt Macey doing well late in the half to keep the visitors in the contest.

It paid dividends a little over ten minutes into the second half when Kyreece Lisbie slipped the ball into the path of Micah Mbick, and he put the U’s in front with a calm, left-footed effort.

County came close to levelling themselves with shy of twenty minutes remaining, Will Jarvis’ goal-bound effort though is blocked by Harvey Araujo.

The result was wrapped up deep into stoppage time when JK Gordon raced down the wing before cutting the ball back for Will Goodwin to fire home the decisive third of the game, he having seen an effort ruled out for offside in the closing minutes of normal time.

NOTTS COUNTY – Kelle Roos, Lewis Macari, Lucas Ness, Jacob Bedeau, Nick Tsaroulla (Will Jarvis, 65), Scott Robertson, Matthew Palmer (captain; Maziar Kouhyar, 71), Keanan Bennetts (Tom Iorpenda, 71), Conor Grant (Matthew Dennis, 65), Tyrese Hall, Alassana Jatta

Mansfield head to leaders Cardiff City in their next outing, this coming Saturday (29 November), the Welsh side a point ahead of the joint-second trio of Bradford City, Lincoln City, and Stockport County; Notts meanwhile are on the road at fifth bottom Bristol Rovers, the Magpies one of a dozen sides at the top end of the division separated by just six points from first place Walsall, down to twelfth place Salford City.