Murray – Draw Was Fair

Manager Adam Murray has said he felt our League Two opening draw against Carlisle at the weekend was fair and he’s looked ahead to the Capital One Cup match on Tuesday evening against Sheffield Wednesday.

Mansfield 1-1 Carlisle & Highlights
Stats: Mansfield v Carlisle

Speaking to the Official Site following the one all draw Murray explained that he’d been ‘chuffed to bits’ with our first proper run out of the season and he felt that with how the game played out, both sides would’ve been happy with a point a piece.

‘I think it was a typical first game of the season. There was tension before the game in people wanting to impress, a lot of these players were on show for the first time today. So especially for the first 45 minutes it was a very tense performance. We weren`t very good with the ball and we made our own errors, we put them on the front foot by giving the ball away very cheaply. But as we settled down, we built in to the second half and we looked a little bit better, but overall I’m chuffed to bits with that work out.’

Murray went on to say that he felt we had needed a properly tough game to serve as a wake up call of just how competitive League Two is following the pre season run up, so on that score he was delighted to see things come together slowly as the game wore on and he remains confident about the year ahead because he knows we still have a lot more improvement that can be made.

‘In League Two you`re not going to be able to have three or four touches, it`s high tempo, you`ve got people in your face and if you`re not up to that intensity then you get caught out. I think the important thing today is that from the first game of the season you want to put something on the board. It gives us a platform to kick on and the lads will relax now.’

Praising goal scorer on the day Malvind Benning, Murray added that he certainly has a strike like that in ‘his locker’ so the hope is we see it more often than we don’t over the coming year – but equally his pleasure at that strike was balanced by what he felt was a very poor goal we went on to concede – but again for him it was an understanding and communication problem between the centre backs and that will get better the more often they play together.

As for tomorrow evening’s League Cup encounter at Hillsborough, Murray was adamant that we go into the game looking to cause an upset and take the win against our Championship hosts.

‘It`s a game of football that we`re going in to win; it`s a little bit tricky for us because we do play Friday as well so we lose a day`s rest and we`re going to have to be mindful of that. Our priority this season is the league but we`ll show respect to the competition and we want to go in to the game and give a good show of ourselves.’