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Mansfield boss Nigel Clough is unsure if the Stags will recall striker Danny Johnson from Walsall despite bemoaning his side’s finishing in Sunday’s 2-1 loss to the Saddlers.

Johnson, ineligible to play against his parent club, has scored 13 times during his loan spell, which runs out on January 15 and he is out of contract at Mansfield this summer.

The Stags were set to sell Johnson to Walsall last summer but boardroom intervention changed the deal to a temporary one and Clough said the decision is not his.

“It’s above my pay grade as they say, it will be decided at board level,” he said.

Rhys Oates scored his second goal in two games to pull one back but Mansfield registered just two shots on target out of 18 attempts.

“The game should have been over in the first 15 minutes – we were all scratching our heads at half-time wondering how we were 1-0 down,” Clough groaned after Mansfield slipped to seventh.

“Poor finishing and a lack of composure in the final third was the reason we didn’t get anything.

“Walsall got some great blocks in but we put too many over the bar as usual – a lot of good shooting positions from outside the area we didn’t hit the target with.

“It was a spirited effort considering when Anthony (Hartigan) went off, that was eight first-teamers missing and we still had a real go, and on another day I think we would have won.

“You can’t ask any more in terms of effort, we’ve just got to be a bit better in certain areas. We attacked from the first minute until the last – for 60-70 per cent of the game we were on top.”

Walsall rose to ninth, two points off the play-off positions, thanks to Stoke loanee Douglas James-Taylor’s maiden English Football League goal and Liam Kinsella’s first league effort for seven years.

“Mansfield are a good team littered with players from higher levels so any victory against them will be hard fought and you’re never going to have it all your own way,” said first-team coach Mat Sadler.

“That being said, for 15-20 minutes at the start of the second half I thought we were going to go ahead and score a third and put the game to bed.

“But today we showed many different sides to us. We showed we can play, be resilient and manage our way through to make sure we win the fixture.

“The last few weeks, there have been a few unexpected goalscorers so long may that continue and that’s the way it is going to have to be.

“We are going to need goals from all different areas. As a team, we always feel there is goals in us.”