1) McCormick at fault for the goal. Came out, could have got to the ball first, wandered back a bit and ended up in no man's land.
2) We had one shot in the first 70 minutes, Mellor somehow hitting the bar from point-blank range. A few more chances late on but in truth it wouldn't have been deserved. Mansfield were poor, we were worse.
3) Mansfield had one tactic: hoof, target man, second ball. We didn't deal with it. Yet again we got drawn into playing their game and it didn't work. Midfield too deep to pick up those second balls.
4) Hartley the best of the three at the back. McHugh couldn't win much in the air against his man but we should have crowded him out more rather than leaving him one-on-one against McHugh. Still not McHugh's best game in spite of this.
5) Andy Kellett has 3 options: Either a) tell the manager that like he said in his first interview here he doesn't like defending and he's a left winger, nothing else, b) learn how to bloody defend, or c) leave. At home we might just about get away with it but away from home there's nowhere to hide. He can't defend for toffee. Shambolic positionally and doesn't mark his man well enough. Gets drawn into stupid areas all the time without the ball. Nelson, O'Connor and especially Hartley all had a go at him during the game, and they were quite right to. Dangerous going forward but a liability at the back.
6) Cox and O'Connor were shadows of the midfield generals we had last week. Tackles were bottled all over the pitch but the main midfield battle was lost. A lot of the game went over their heads yes but on the occasions it didn't, they didn't do well enough at all. Blizzard played some sublime through balls in the first half but faded in the second.
7) Both strikers had a tough ask with the midfield deep, leaving them isolated.
8) Banton was excellent when he came on. Norburn was pretty good too. I'll get to the other sub in a minute.
9) That's 5 goals now in 10 away games this season - and only 2(!) from open play. Regardless of how good our defending normally is, we will not get out of this league unless that improves.
10) McCormick got into a bit of a spat with their #25, no idea what about. Poor game though, had very little to do but what he did do wasn't very good.
11) TCE cretins who turned up - f**k off out of our club. There's probably an EDL march somewhere you could be attending instead.
12) Final word of the day goes to Deane Smalley. What an absolute joke of a player this man is turning into. Unbelievably selfish, very rarely moves off the ball, can't win headers, can't score apart from penalties, can't link up play, can't draw free-kicks... can't do anything. His only moment of note today was getting in the way of Cox who was about to shoot from 6 yards out with the keeper nowhere. Thanks a bunch Deane, clear off back to Oxford. I'll flaming drive you there myself if I have to.
McCormick 4
Nelson 6
McHugh 6
Hartley 8
Mellor 7
Cox 5
Blizzard 7
O'Connor 5
Kellett 3
Reid 6
Alessandra 6
Subs: Banton 8, Norburn 7, Smalley 1.