Angry Mansfield Town manager Adam Murray apologised to the fans and labelled his players spineless after a shock 4-1 home defeat to York City dragged the Stags back into the relegation battle.

Mansfield were already two goals down to poor marking and giving away possession cheaply – Keith Lowe and the livewire Shaq Coulthirst on target – when York keeper Bobby Olejnik was sent off on the half hour for tipping away Rakish Bingham’s goalbound shot when outside the area. Bingham earlier rattled the woodwork with a ferocious shot immediately after Coulthirst made it 2-0.

However, despite the man advantage the home side rarely threatened a goal until substitute Matt Rhead’s 77th minute finish.

By then City had added a third goal, a free Jake Hyde header from yet another excellently delivered corner, and Spurs loanee Coulthirst completed the rout a minute from time.

Murray blasted: “That was shambolic and the lowest point of my 20-odd games. We were gutless, spineless and I am ashamed to represent that tonight.

“We didn’t do the basics. We didn’t defend set pieces, we lacked bravery in possession and we didn’t win any battles. The ball became a hot potato.

“We owe people an apology tonight. Every single person that came to the game deserves an apology. That was not acceptable.
“If you can’t rely on people to carry out their jobs you are in trouble.

“Working on things all week then going out and doing you own thing on a Saturday is pointless.

“The bottom line hasn’t changed as I have said all along this will go to the wire. We had a few wins recently, but we are not good enough to pull ourselves out of it and go through a time when we don’t need the points.

“Today showed we are a million miles away. Now we have three ridiculously tough games “In both boxes we were awful. We couldn’t defend, we didn’t look like we wanted to score and in between we kicked it as far as we could. We don’t ask people to play like that.

“We didn’t look a team. We looked like an outfit that was scared to death. It’s ripped my heart out to be honest.”