Mansfield Town made it two impressive 1-1 draws in five days against higher-ranked opposition at One Call Stadium after a 1-1 draw with Premier League Leicester City on Saturday.

Matt Green levelled from the penalty spot in the first half, after good work by the impressive Mitchell Rose, following David Nugent’s opener for the visitors, who were backed by more than 1,600 fans.

Nathan Thomas, who again excelled for the Stags, and Chris Clements both struck the woodwork as Leicester, who finished the game with arguably their strongest possible line-up, failed to find a late winner.

Afterwards manager Adam Murray refused to get carried away by the two good results, the first coming against Championship newboys MK Dons, and said: “There is still a lot of hard work to do. We have two weeks to go (before the start of the league season) and we will now put the foot down.

“Optimism is brilliant and no one is more optimistic than the players and the staff here as we know what we have got in that changing room.

“But we must have a balance between that and realism. We have to work hard to make sure the performances in pre-season carry on to 8th August when it really matters.”