Striker dilemma for David

Hand’s up who can’t wait for 3pm on Saturday either?

 

It’s been a while since the buzz of a Stags game felt like this and, call me over-optimistic (or what you like), I can see us scoring another three or four goals against Ebbsfleet this weekend.

 

It’s a tough call for Liam Daish. He desperately needs to chalk up his first win of the new campaign at the fifth attempt. But at the same time he knows Stags have not lost at home since last year and have scored eight times in the two homes so far.

 

So he knows they cannot afford to come here all guns blazing and leaving room for the like of Ryan Williams and Louis Briscoe to take advantage.

 

I think they will sit back for a while and keep things tight before weighing up what to do to achieve that elusive first win.

 

One thing I can’t see them doing is hampering their chances by playing the bully boys like Barrow’s bruisers did on Tuesday night.

 

Be tough and rugged by all means but for the second successive season their methods at Field Mill owed more to ice hockey and rugby than football and it is only a surprise that they ended up with just one red and seven yellow cards.

 

To be within a goal of your opposition with just 12 minutes left and then give away two soft penalty kicks is not much cleverer either.

 

With regular taker Rob Duffy susbtituted, both kicks were given to Daryl Clare and I knew before he took them that both would hit the net, even despite Barrow’s petty gamesmanship in delaying the first one.

 

Clare deserves a start for the hard work he has done on his fitness this summer and the impact he made in both games so far. But who would you drop?

 

Granted Duffy didn’t have his most productive of games at Salisbury but I thought times on Tuesday he was our best player in the first half, getting among the rugged Barrow defenders.

 

And Kyle Perry has been a revelation since he came here and has already bagged three goals. And let’s not forget the pace of Jake Speight who is desperate not be branded a supersub this season, having already notched twice.

 

It’s a fantastic headache for bos David Holdsworth to deal with and one that I would not want to have to make a decision on.

 

Usually a side with four first class strikers will have two or three on form. But all four Stags’ front men are scoring goals and full of confidence.

 

Whichever pairing he puts out, I think all four will see action at some stage on Saturday and I think another three points will come our way.

 

But, with all the top four at home, I can also see us stuck in fourth still on Saturday tea time too.

The future is orange – the future is Luton! Or is it?

The future is bright – the future is orange!
That seemed to be the message from Luton Town to their supporters as they ended Mansfield Town’s three-day reign at the top of the BSP on Tuesday night.
For those who didn’t go and saw the 4-1 result, it looked Mansfield had been panned.
The truth was it was a closer game than that score suggests, but with Luton always deserving the three points.
Just two goals in the last nine minutes, as Mansfield rightly went a bit gung-ho for an equaliser, finally killed off the visitors.
And it was even tougher that those two goals were a Kyle Perry own goal and a penalty conceded by the same player, who had been a two-goal hero just three days earlier!
We all agreed in the press box at the end that we did not see a side as good as Luton all last season in this league and probably won’t this season.
They look every bit the League Two side who are only here by default rather than having been a poor side last season. Only that 25 point deduction brought them here and they don’t look like they will stay long (well worth a flutter on top of your Stags bet on that form).

But I still think Mansfield are capable of pushing them hard all the way and can’t wait to beat them in the Field Mill return. And Luton have many culture shocks to overcome this season as we all know only too well.
Walking down towards  Kenilworth Road on Tuesday night brought back a lot of memories, largely bad ones about looking over my shoulder down the back streets with my lap top perched invitingly on my shoulder.
You can’t park near the ground for the match and for the residential cars who were parked near the ground, one had their side window bashed through which hardly filled you with hope your own car would be in one piece when you left the stadium late after all the post-match interviews were typed up.
An accident near Donington Services made me late on the way down (though not too late for a Pukka pie) and roadworks near Northampton produced big queues later on as we tried to stay awake long enough to get home.
Stags fans were fantastic on the first day against Crawley with their backing. But the noise those ‘mad Hatters’ made on Tuesday was something else.
It was a crescendo of vitriol – a constant barrage of aggression that will make it a very intimidating place to go for away teams, fans and referees alike.
Every single decision was contested on the pitch by their players and in the stands by their fans. Every Stags tackle was a foul, in the box was a penalty, everything the referee gve Mansfield was wrong.
If Field Mill is to be a fortress, Luton will be a giant castle with several moats (possibly cleaned out by the local MPs on expenses)?
It was funny to hear the home fans taunt Stags about their poor away following. Over 500 Stags fans were there so, on those standards, they will have a big shock as the season unfolds when several of the also-rans in this league bring just three men and a dog to their away section.
‘You’ve never won a thing’ from the Luton fans was countered by ‘You’re not famous anymore’ by the travelling fans as Mansfild’s joy at going ahead was soon silenced.
Meetings between these sides have often been fiery and goal-filled affairs and this was no exception with two red cards near the end of an all-out action-packed game that was a fantastic advert for this level of football.
So now it’s on to Salisbury which will be the polar opposite of Luton.
Salisbury are a club that almost went through financially last season and play at a tiny, picturesque little stadium – one of British football’s real outposts.
Amazingly they are the only side to win their first two games and replaced Stags at the top on Tuesday.
But I firmly believe Mansfield will have too much for them on Saturday.
I did not have much time to look at the town or its surrounds last season but, for somewhere I have never had the pleasure of visiting, I will make sure I do this time as I really liked the look of what I saw.
That means throwing a tent in the car (watcc it pour down) along with a copy of the Good Beer Guide which has revealed a promising number of top quality drinking establishments in the city centre.
The games then come thick and fast with two home games in five days.
Football is a fickle mistress and the euphoria of the opening day win was washed away by the Luton defeat.
If Stags were to lose on Saturday then all of a sudden some fans would look upon it as a poor start to the campaign.
But if Stags won at Salisbury, with two at home to follow, it could be the platform that sets them up for a campaign to remember.
It is a very fine line and none of us can wait to see which side of it the Stags end up on.

It’s here at last!!!!!

All the weeks of speculation and intrigue are over and we are finally ready to start the new football season this Saturday.

So time is running out to pop a cheeky tenner on the Stags for promotion before they thump the lovely Steve Evans’ ‘creepy Crawleys’ on Saturday and then give cocky Luton Town a rude home welcome to the BSP at Kenilworth Road on Tuesday night.

Six points from those and your odds will drop quickly at the bookies. So do it now!

To be fair, six points to head to Salisbury with next week would be a dream start, but it’s not beyond what looks to be a very capable set of players assembled this summer by David Holdsworth.

Seeing some of them close up at the training ground for the first time yesterday I must admit I was struggling to recognise some of them. And, being a short***e I was dwarfed by many of them.

For once we look like we might be a threat at set pieces and also able to defend them at the other end.

Although most of us can hazard a decent guess as to the starting XI, we could also name decent competition for every one of those places which hasn’t been the case for a while.

New skipper Gary Mills told me on my video interview with him yesterday that no one was going to start talking about promotion and success, but he added that there were very few players elsewhere in the division he would swap for the ones in the current dressing room and you can tell they are all quietly confident of making a splash this season.

Me too. I fully expect us to beat Crawley on Saturday, maybe 2-0, with a great atmosphere at the Mill. Then we face the first of two away trips inside five days.

I am not looking forward to the Luton trip on Tuesday as the parking is a way from the ground and it a real dump round there. Last time I walked down the main street towards the ground there was a discarded sofa and a discarded washing machine sitting in the middle of the pavement. Disgraceful.

This may be a good time to face the Hatters as they attempt to find their feet at home after the culture shock of their opening day trip to AFC Wimbledon where I feel they will have gained something.

Then it’s on to Salisbury where David Holdsworth had better make sure he wears the right gear (Billy McEwan last year claimed he had been ‘snitched on’ for not wearing the correct sponsors’ shirt down there).

So here begins another nine months of ups and downs, travels, arguments, frustrations, elation, real ale pubs, and football. Bring it on . . . .