Wanderers<\/a> made three changes to the side that beat Rotherham, bringing in Sam Dalby, Xavier Simons and Jordi Osei-Tutu for Marcus Forss, Cyrus Christie and Ethan Erhahon.\n<\/p>\n\n The first half was just about as one-sided an affair as we have seen at the Toughsheet in some years, yet somehow the Whites walked back down the tunnel a goal down.\n<\/p>\n
\n The numbers said it all \u2013 more than 77 per cent possession, nine shots on goal, 10 corners and two significant saves from Stags keeper Liam Roberts, it was a scruffy goal from Rhys Oates that separated the sides at the break.\n<\/p>\n
\n Wanderers only had themselves to blame. Dalby had started off a wasteful night, hitting the keeper with a shot from close range after Mansfield had got caught playing out from a goal kick.\n<\/p>\n
\n The ball barely left the Stags half, yet the quality of Bolton\u2019s set pieces seemed to deteriorate as time went on.\n<\/p>\n
\n Gale curled a shot into the keeper\u2019s arms, Simons also drilled a volley wide from the edge of the box and when full-back Elliott Hewitt was hooked after only 27 minutes \u2013 having been booked moments earlier for a pull-back on Gale \u2013 you got a sense of how the evening was going for Nigel Clough\u2019s men.\n<\/p>\n
\n Josh Sheehan and Joel Randall continued to pick an intricate path but Amario Cozier-Duberry tried something a little more direct, picking the ball up 35 yards out and beating two challenges before smashing a left-footed effort just wide of the far post.\n<\/p>\n
\n Moments later, Sheehan tried something similar. His dipping effort was saved awkwardly by Roberts, dropping for Dalby dead centre of goal. Peter Sweeney and Deji Oshilaja managed to block his efforts to stab a shot over the line and then the pair got something in the way of Osei-Tutu\u2019s follow-up, which cannoned vertically over the crossbar.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mansfield had barely laid a glove on Bolton for the whole first half, yet their first set piece brought about a quite unexpected lead.\n<\/p>\n
\n Teddy Sharman-Lowe seemed to lose Nathan Moriah-Welsh\u2019s corner under pressure, and Oates \u2013 who had been red-carded for a challenge on Ethan Erhahon at Field Mill just a few weeks ago \u2013 was able to flick the ball inside the far post.\n<\/p>\n
\n If there is a sound of incredulity, it echoed around the stadium for minutes afterwards. And it was difficult to fathom how after such total domination of a match, Bolton had once again given themselves extra work to do in the second half.\n<\/p>\n
\n Within a couple of minutes of the restart Wanderers had another golden chance to get back on level terms as Sheehan picked out Max Conway\u2019s run with a peach of a pass, but the full-back became the latest player to find Roberts impossible to beat.\n<\/p>\n
\n It was the sort of goalkeeping performance that might even have impressed the legendary Jussi Jaaskelainen, who was back visiting with his family and announced to a warm ovation at the interval.\n<\/p>\n
\n Cozier-Duberry had another shot blocked close to goal on the hour by which point Schumacher decided he needed to change his midfield mix, bringing on Aaron Morley for his first football since the FA Cup exit at Swindon at the start of the month.\n<\/p>\n
\n The tension started to seep into the atmosphere as the minutes ticked down. Cozier-Duberry sent another shot wide from distance but as Mansfield retreated deeper and started to visibly waste more time, we found ourselves in a very familiar position.\n<\/p>\n
\n Schumacher threw on Kyle Dempsey and Mason Burstow, hoping for a change in fortune in front of goal but what had now become a Mansfield back six was proving an impenetrable unit.\n<\/p>\n
\n Thierry Gale appeared to pull up with 15 minutes left, replaced by Ibrahim Cissoko, and Schumacher then gambled another man forward, bringing Forss on for Johston and moving Morley to centre-half.\n<\/p>\n
\n The wait for a big chance went on. Dempsey headed one Cozier-Duberry cross wide, Roberts blocked another from Osei-Tutu with his feet at the near post.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mansfield\u2019s noisy travelling fans were genuinely starting to believe this smash and grab could be a successful one.\n<\/p>\n
\n Cissoko thought he had manufactured a chance when he skipped through a coupe of challenges before tumbling on the edge of the box \u2013 but referee Peter Wright produced only a yellow card for diving, much to the home crowd\u2019s disgust.\n<\/p>\n
\n Wright then turned down an even stronger penalty appeal from Sheehan moments later, which had the whole Bolton team up in arms.\n<\/p>\n
\n Frustration turned to desperation, and Wanderers nearly gave up any chance of a comeback after letting Aaron Lewis in on the left edge of the box, breathing a sight of relief as his shot sailed well wide.\n<\/p>\n
\n Sheehan had fought a one-man war at times, and the Welshman skipped into the box in stoppage time, only to see yet another block in front of goal.\n<\/p>\n
\n Conway then danced his way in before being bundled to the floor, referee Wright again unimpressed.\n<\/p>\n
\n Wanderers threw everything forward in the final moments but had their last chance skied over the bar by Osei-Tutu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steven Schumacher\u2019s men had enough possession, pressure and opportunities to have made this as comfortable a 90 minutes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-342081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}