Mansfield Town manager David Holdsworth has no doubts Oxford United are capable of reaching the play-offs.

And he highlighted the impressive spine to the team as a major reason why they can finish in the top five.

“Oxford are the best team we’ve played,” said Holdsworth, who was tasting defeat for the first time in his seven games so far in charge at Field Mill.

“They’ve got good balance – two centre halves who head the ball, good central midfielders and good strikers, so the spine of the team’s strong, and the width of the team is good.

“Don’t underestimate Chris Wilder’s team in this division,” he added.

“I thought they could be a handful and they’re proving more than that, they’re very good. The boys up front are certainly doing the hard work for them.”

Holdsworth, though, felt Mansfield were not far away from taking a point, or even three, from the Kassam Stadium last Saturday.

“It could have gone either way. We are paying the price for not taking chances,” he added. “We had a couple of big moments where we didn’t take our chance.”

Wilder reckoned the win over Mansfield was worth a lot, because the Stags, relegated from League Two last season, are good enough to take points off several of the play-off chasing sides in the closing weeks of the campaign.

“Mansfield were a tough net to crack,” he said.

“In my time at Bury, I spoke to a lot of people about Mansfield, with them being quite local to me in Sheffield as well, and they were very surprised that Mansfield went down.

“They kept a majority of the players, the manager has added his professionalism and discipline to the side, and I've said to my players I'm sure Mansfield will go, home and away, against the top sides and pick up points.

“So for us to get the victory was vitally important, and I was absolutely made up about it.”

Mansfield have home games remaining against Kidderminster, Torquay and, on the final day of the season, Stevenage.

They must still visit Cambridge, Histon and Wrexham.