Neil Aspin fell to his heaviest defeat as manager on Tuesday evening as Mansfield ran out 4-0 victors at Vale Park.

Despite the scoreline, Aspin believes that his side had an ‘excellent’ first half and the margin of defeat was perhaps harsh on his players who did create chances themselves.

“You don’t feel too good as a manager when you lose 4-0 at home, on the face of it, it looks a disastrous result,” said Aspin.

“But, if you were at the game you’d realise that in the first half we were excellent and we thoroughly deserved to be in front.

“Mansfield had never really had a shot in the game until they scored right on half-time, and then after that, it just gives a totally different reflection on the game.

“Once we conceded that second goal we had a really bad spell and you’d have to say their finishing was excellent, but we have to dust ourselves down and get on with it.”

On the level of commitment from his players, Aspin added: “They put in a lot of effort and a lot of commitment, but nothing went our way in the game.

“You need a bit of luck, the run of the ball which is what you need, and we’ve had two or three efforts cleared off the line and nothing fell for us - we could’ve been talking about a different result if we had taken our chances in the first half.”

Zander Diamond’s first goal of the evening came just two minutes before the break to give the Stags the lead against the run of play, something which Aspin was disappointed with. 

He said: “It was disappointing, but I honestly thought that if we could do the same as what we had been doing in the first half during the second, that we would get a break to get back into the game.

“The first goal hurt, but the second goal certainly killed the game off. We then had a high line and we were vulnerable in behind because we were chasing the game.

“You need to be in front so the opposition comes out and you can exploit the spaces behind them.

“I’m disappointed because we’ve been getting some good results, but we have to go again.”