United head coach David Hockaday was left ruing defensive mistakes after Tuesday night’s pre-season defeat to Mansfield Town.

Two second half goals from Mansfield striker Liam Hearn proved enough for the League Two outfit but the head coach did see positives in defeat.

“I was happy for a lot of the game,” said the head coach. “I thought that Mansfield set-up to stop us playing so they showed us respect.

“It took us a while to get into our stride and to be honest I couldn’t see them scoring unless we made mistakes. And we did make mistakes.

“I thought that we got stronger as the game went on for the first 60-70 minutes. The thing that disappointed me was that we got into strong positions and we really should have buried them.

“You want to win every game so I was disappointed that we got into some great positions and didn’t find the back of the net.”

VIDEO: WE MADE SOME MISTAKES

Hockaday spoke about cutting out individual errors and the importance of making our dominance count.

“They had two chances and scored two goals so fair play to them,” added David.  “They were individual errors and we can eradicate those.

“My concern and my challenge is to make sure that when you dominate a game we should come away with a victory. We should certainly come away with a minimum of a 0-0.

“We need to stop the individual errors and when we get into good positions we have got to find that pass and put the ball in the back of the net.”

The head coach will continue to work with the current squad but has not ruled out adding players before the season starts on August 9.

“The quality comes from working with the players we have got,” he said. “They are improving and they are looking a lot more comfortable on the ball.

“We are moving the ball around the pitch better. If we feel that we need to improve with additions to the squad we will do that.”