After missing out on promotion last season, Mansfield Town have struggled in League Two under new manager John Dempster this time round. But what's gone wrong for him?

Mansfield were one of the favourites to claim the League Two title last year. The Stags were looking to break into English football’s third tier, but things didn’t go to plan and Mansfield find themselves in League Two for a seventh straight season.

David Flitcroft was the man at the helm for the start of the 2018/19 campaign, but was shown the door in May this year after he failed to guide the team to promotion. Automatic promotion was the goal for Mansfield last year and for long periods it looked the most likely outcome. But form began to falter towards the business end, and three-straight defeats to finish the season saw them miss out on third.

They lost to eventual runners-up Newport County in the play-off semi-finals, and the board chose to depart with Flitcroft after 68 games in charge. Replacing him was Mansfield’s academy manager and former player John Dempster. Dempster was made academy manager in 2015 and was highly-regarded by the Mansfield board, who described him as ‘one of the best and most innovative young coaches in football’.

Dempster though hasn’t had the start to life in football management that he would’ve been hoping for. Mansfield had their sights set again on promotion but after 11 games sit in 19th place of League Two. A 1-0 loss at home to Plymouth on Saturday extended Mansfield’s winless run to four in the league, with just one win coming in the last nine games in all competitions.

Mansfield may have expected a slower start to the campaign under a new manager but won’t have expected the club to be hanging in the bottom half of the table at this stage. The biggest change and arguably their downfall from last season is the lack of goals. Mansfield scored 69 league goals last season but have only mustered 12 so far this campaign, and the departure of top-scorer Tyler Walker is likely the catalyst behind this.

Walker spent last season on-loan from Nottingham Forest and scored 26 goals in all competitions before he returned to his parent club in the summer, before going on to join Lincoln City in League One for another loan-season. Dempster failed to replace the goals that Walker gave Mansfield in the summer and his side are paying for it now. The season is still young though and given enough time and enough goals, Dempster could still mount a late play-off push with Mansfield.