Harrogate’s win against Mansfield was best display of the season – Simon Weaver

Posted Sunday, November 20, 2022 by PA

Simon Weaver hailed Harrogate’s best performance of the season as they romped to a 3-0 home win over play-off hopefuls Mansfield.

A sixth goal of the season for midfielder Alex Pattison followed by striker Luke Armstrong’s brace – all scored in the first half – saw the Sulphurites extend their proud undefeated record against the Stags to a sixth contest, including five wins and one draw.

Weaver was particularly impressed with how Harrogate coped with Mansfield’s considerable aerial threat – an area in which his side have struggled this term.

He said: “I’m really proud of the performance. Everybody was on it.

“We were good out of possession and, when we had the ball, we worried Mansfield and were clinical. It was probably our best performance of the season, but it has been coming.

“We’ve not had the rub of the green recently, but we still needed to improve in key elements of the game in terms of defending our box better and we did that, so everybody should take confidence from the performance. We saw their line-up and knew they had gone as big and physical as they possibly could.

“But, despite their height advantage, we defended their set-pieces really well and we also got the ball down well on a greasy surface and caused problems.

“We are good on the break but can also pass the ball and we are creating plenty of chances now.”

Mansfield manager Nigel Clough was fuming with his team’s display and admitted he selected the wrong starting XI.

Right-sided centre-half John-Joe O’Toole and wing-back Jordan Bowery were both hauled off at the break, along with Kieran Wallace, and a seething Clough said: “We conceded three incredibly poor goals in the first half when, in terms of our overall play, we hadn’t played too badly.

“All we talked about during the week was about how the opposition’s strength was on the break because they sit in and counter, but they’ve scored their first goal from our free-kick.

“We had four players back there who are aged over 30 but they still didn’t take that on board and we were incredibly poor down the right-hand side.

“I picked the wrong team and probably the wrong formation, so that has to be looked at.

“If I’d have gone for a different team, I think we would have been better than that.

“Their keeper made two outstanding saves in the first half and Oli Hawkins should have scored with a header and you have to be clinical because they had three real chances and scored three goals, but you don’t deserve to win when you give the opposition those chances like we did.”