PROUD Mansfield Town boss Paul Cox is refusing to be down over his side's controversial FA Cup defeat to Premier League Liverpool.
Instead, he has called on his players to maintain the same standard of performance in order to climb the Blue Square Bet Premier table.
The Stags lost 2-1 at the One Call Stadium yesterday, with Luis Suarez handling the ball to score his side's second goal.
It proved decisive as it made the score 2-0 after Mansfield had put Liverpool on the ropes and, despite Matt Green pulling a goal back, the Stags could not get the crucial equaliser in the third round tie.
But with his side now having up to five games in hand on some of their rivals and a fixture backlog to catch up on, Cox wants them to use this experience as a positive.
"Obviously I am disappointed but I am proud of the lads," said Cox, whose Mansfield side sit six points off the play-offs in the league standings.
"The lads now, especially the second half, have set the standard. We have four or five games to catch up on other teams and we have to be consistent now and if we do that, we will be in among the pack.
"We are going for promotion and that is our main aim. This was a great day and the lads got something out of it – memories, dreams, but the bread and butter is league football.
"We will come back down to earth now with a massive bump but the standards have been set and we have to carry them through to the league.
"It has been fabulous, a little bit surreal, but we have kept focused on the football and I am just disappointed we could not get that second goal and achieve the dream of going to Anfield.
"I don't want to celebrate losing a football match but we will take a lot of positives from the game and try to build into our league campaign and be proactive in terms of our league position.
"We have run an excellent football club, a massive club close and do I want to point to the referee? No. I would rather take the positives because this is all over now and I don't want to look at ifs, buts or maybes. I want to look at the positives."
