Brown pleased at win

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Southend defender Adam Thompson had to be replaced by Cian Bolger after just 10 minutes due to a shoulder injury but it did not hold the hosts back.

Barry Corr scored his eighth goal in nine appearances after 21 minutes before Will Atkinson pounced with his first strike of the season six minutes later.

And Brown was pleased with how comfortable the afternoon was ahead of Monday’s long trip to Hartlepool.

United boss Brown said: “It is tight at the top of the table and there is pressure on players, and there’s pressure on teams to get to where we want to get to. But as I said to them, we’re 10 points better off than last year.

“I thought in the first half we were worthy of two goals and it should’ve been more, truth be known.

“I thought it was a comfortable 2-0 in truth, they threw certain things at us but when your goalkeeper doesn’t make a save in 90 minutes it shows you how comfortable it was.

“Adam Barrett has got that mentality we’ve got at the club, that clean sheet mentality. He’s had it all his career and you’ve seen it on show on many times today.

“The clean sheet was the most enjoyable thing for me this afternoon.

“For us to get our 13th clean sheet at home it shows just what a fortress Roots Hall has become.”

Mansfield boss Adam Murray stressed the need for stability, citing a number of factors for the club’s current situation.

The Stags have lost their last three games and are six points above the relegation zone.

He said: “I think stability and consistency goes hand-in-hand. I’ve said in my programme notes for Monday’s home game that we are in our situation because of the amount of disruption and changes that have gone through the club this season.

“We’ve obviously had a change of manager, we’ve had staff leave, we’ve got too many loan players, we’ve had four physios.

“There’s been a ridiculous amount of change at the football club. You’ve got to put that into consideration with the style of play we’ve tried to change. It’s adding up to the challenge that we’re in.

“Nobody’s going to say ‘alright then, well you’ve had to deal with that this season, we’ll give you three points’.

“We can’t afford to sit back and go ‘this is not fair’ – we’ve got to stand up, we’ve got to fight.

“We want to win every week. But we’re realistic about who we are, we understand where we are and know we’ll have to dig deep.”