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Archived News from February 2015

MURRAY AND JIM BENTLEY REACTION
13th February 2015 18:31



Murray’s thoughts after defeat at Morecambe
mansfieldtown.net

Boss reflects on disappointing night at the Globe Arena.

Read more at http://www.mansfieldtown.net/news/article/murrays-thoughts-after-defeat-at-morecambe-2263774.aspx#1waMMFayCl5wQM3Q.99

Manager Adam Murray wants players to take responsibility and give every drop of effort in our remaining 17 games of the campaign, after defensive errors once again contributed to a defeat - this time a 2-1 reverse at Morecambe last night.

The Stags found themselves 2-0 down inside 25 minutes at the Globe Arena, courtesy of Paul Mullin’s early strike from a well-worked set-piece, and a simple finish by veteran striker Kevin Ellison, before Simon Heslop halved the deficit with a powerful free-kick.

However, Heslop’s strike wasn’t enough as we were consigned to another defeat on the road and drop down a place to 21st position in Sky Bet League Two.

“Frustration is the overwhelming feeling again,” said Murray. “It’s gone past anger and it’s gone past disappointment. Sometimes you’ve got to turn around and look at people and put responsibility on them.

“Preparation-wise, we can’t physically do any more. We’re actually putting it in black and white what is going to happen in these set-piece situations. If you ask any of the players they will tell you that they were made aware of five of six set-plays that might happen in this game.

“But we switched off [for the first goal] and found ourselves 1-0 down.”

With centre-back Michael Raynes likely to be sidelined for some time because of a hamstring injury he sustained in last night’s game, Murray may look to get fellow defender John Dempster back in the team over the coming weeks.

Dempster travelled to the North-West, but wasn’t named amongst the substitutes.

“John is on his way back to fitness. He’s been in and around the group over the past couple of weeks and his voice is a big help,” continued our boss.

“At the moment though, it’s not just the defensive side of the team that’s causing problems. We’ve got to defend all over the pitch and as we saw, we conceded from a run from the halfway line and a set-piece.

“So people have got to be accounted for and nothing changes as far as I’m concerned. It’s going to be a bumpy ride for the next 17 games and we’ve got to work as hard as we can.”

Murray added: “We’ve got to stick together. The games are going to come thick and fast now and we haven’t got time to sulk. We’ve got to get back on the training ground as soon as we can, put the work in, and we’ll see where we go.

“I think we’re down to 20 bodies now, three of those being babies, so it’s backs against the wall time, but in my mind nothing has changed.

“Since the day I took the job, I’ve seen this as going down to the wire. We’ve got to dig in and come out the other side.”

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Mansfield Town manager Adam Murray told BBC Radio Nottingham:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31106156

"Frustration is the overwhelming feeling again, its gone past anger.
"Sometimes you've got to turn around and look at people and put responsibility on them. Preparation-wise we can't do anymore.
"We are putting it in black and white what is going to happen in these situations.
"If you ask the players, they will tell you that they were made aware of five or six of the set-play situations that were going to happen today."

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Mansfield Town players have to 'step up now', says boss Adam Murray
Nottingham Post, by Sarah Clapson

Boss Adam Murray admitted he wasn’t surprised by the return of Mansfield Town’s defensive frailties at Morecambe.

Read more: http://www.nottinghampost.com/Mansfield-Town-step-says-boss-Adam-Murray/story-26010004-detail/story.html?#ixzz3RWJtJdlY

An inconsistent level of performance has dogged the Stags all season, preventing them from putting a run of results together.

And after looking solid at the back in Saturday’s 1-0 win over Stevenage, they went from one extreme to the other in their 2-1 defeat at the Globe Arena.

“I’ve seen it over the course of the season. We are where we are because we’re inconsistent,” said Murray.

“We can’t roll out a number of performances that keep to eight or nine out of ten from individuals and as a team.

“We go into a comfort zone too easily.

“We can put the work in on the training ground and go through our meetings, but when you get out there on the grass, it’s up to people to be accounted for.

“When we do that and people do their roles to their maximum ability, we’ve seen what kind of performances we get. Saturday was one of them.

“But Tuesday was 30 minutes of madness.

“I apologise for the first half an hour of the game. And, I’ll be honest, the players should be out here apologising because it’s not acceptable to perform like that.

“No-one took responsibility.

“There’s only so long you can defend people. It’s about time people started standing up and putting in performances on a consistent basis which warrant wearing this shirt.”

Paul Mullin and Kevin Ellison had put the hosts ahead with 24 minutes on the clock, the first goal coming from a corner.

Murray accused his players of not doing their jobs at set-pieces.

“We lacked defensive organisation. The first 20 minutes of the game killed us,” said the manager, who saw defender Michael Raynes pull up with a hamstring injury in the second half.

“We’ve tried to put an extra centre-half in there to help them out. We go through set-plays; we spent the last three weeks doing them day in, day out.

“The team is actually shown what the opposition is going to do; they’re given individual people to mark. It’s just a case of doing your job.”

Mansfield now sit just two points above the League Two relegation zone, having fallen to ten defeats on the road - a record they are eager to improve.

“We go into our shells away from home,” said Murray. “I don’t hear any voices out there. No-one takes responsibility.

“Lenny (goalkeeper Lenny Pidgeley) summed it up. He’s only been here two minutes but he says, ‘it’s like a morgue out there at times’.

“You’re looking around at your big characters and established players to pull the young boys through, and they’ve got to step up now.”

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Jim Bentley on Shrimps Player
transcribed by Martin Shaw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4zMLKZ99g0

It was a game of two halves. I thought first half we were excellent; our set-plays were great.
The corner, which we work on, for the first goal, was superb.
I thought we caused them all types of problems.
But at the other end, they loaded the ball in to the box and we had to stand up and be counted. We got good blocks in.

They put the free-kick away and that put us a little bit on edge.

They changed their shape, two substitutions, and had a right good go at us.
And they were the better side second half.
I looked at it thinking we need to do something to counteract it, and we changed our shape and went to 4-4-2 and matched them up.
Anytime it got clear, it was coming back and getting loaded in the box.

It's about winning. I'm pleased with the performance first half; we need to do better obviously second half.

We looked very jittery and nervous second half, our clearances were slashed at.
Thankfully we kept the ball out the back of the net.

And we're through the 40 point barrier so we're looking up rather than down.

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twitter
Ryan Tafazolli @RyanTafazolli
Terrible feeling losing. 17 games to play, we've definitely got more than what it takes. We'll treat every game as if it's our last #MTFC

Joe Fitzpatrick @JoeFitzpatrickx
Still buzzing I made my debut yesterday

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Latest | February 2015